Cracks In The Armor
by takeanotherturn
Summary: The story of a girl, her beard, and her struggle to land the girl of her dreams.
1. Prologue

**Title:** Cracks In The Armor  
**Author:** takeanotherturn  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Spoilers:** Season 2  
**Pairings:** Minor Sam/Quinn, Finn/Rachel, eventual Quinn/Rachel  
**Summary:** The story of a girl, her beard, and her struggle to land the girl of her dreams.

* * *

Sam Evans wanted to tell Quinn Fabray that he loved her. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure that he really did but they'd been dating for a while now -almost a whole month!- and he really cared about her and she was super hot and popular and her nickname was Q which was totally badass. He figured it was kind of the closest to love he was ever going to get in high school. Plus, if he told her that he loved her, Quinn might just let him get past first base.

Sam knew that a declaration like that required careful planning, he wanted to keep things light. Quinn had been hurt in the past and big romantic gestures weren't his style anyway. He knew that she thought it was cute and endearing when he got all geeky so, he decided, he'd just have to find a hilarious and dorktastic way to tell her he loved her and then she'd let him touch her boobs. If you asked him, Sam's plan was practically flawless.

So there they were, making out in the Fabray's study -which really seemed more like some creepy Jesus shrine and actually totally freaked him out but it was the only place that Quinn would allow them to get their mack on so he dealt with it. Once Sam had suggested that they go up to her bedroom and she'd accidentally kneed him in the balls.- and Quinn had just smacked his hand away from where'd he'd gently rested it on her knee. She drew back and he knew that she was about to say it was time to pray and it just slipped out. "I'm in lesbians with you."

Even in the dim orange glow of the fireplace, Sam could see all the color drain from her face. _Oh shit, too soon,_ he thought to himself as Quinn practically threw herself back against the opposite arm of the couch, looking like he'd just punched her in the stomach. Which he would never ever do, by the way, Samuel Joseph Evans was totally against violence towards women.

"What'd you just say?" she finally asked, in a voice so cold it could refreeze the melting polar icecaps.

Oh crap, she was really mad. This was worse than the time he'd said Beiste's name when they were making out but strangely still not as bad as when he'd innocently asked her why everyone hated Rachel Berry so much; that time Quinn had gone all red in the face and launched into a passionate, two hour long lecture on Rachel's many flaws that didn't actually end up clarifying anything. "I-"

"Why would you say that? I'm not gay!" Quinn snapped, her shock giving way to rage. "Who told you that I was?"

"Nobody!" Obviously, Quinn had never seen Scott Pilgrim versus The World, he'd have to lend her the dvd sometime.

"It was RuPaul, wasn't it," Quinn accused, now bordering on hysteria. Now Sam was just confused, what did RuPaul have to do with this? Had she found out about his secret love for Drag Race? "Berry thinks she knows everything just because she has two gay dads. Just because I'm not a slut that'll let you touch the sides of my breasts like her, it does not mean that I am a lesbian, Sam!"

Oh, so RuPaul was Rachel, which didn't really make any sense to him. What could Rachel possibly have in common with a tall, black, drag queen? "Quinn, I was just-"

"If I was a lesbian, would I be kissing you? No. And I had a baby, which means I had sex with a guy, which means that I'm straight and not gay and I don't know why you'd believe her anyway because I don't even own any flannel!"

..._What?_ "Rachel didn't-"

"You need to leave," Quinn said, shoving him off the couch and barely giving him enough time to collect his backpack and shoes before she was forcibly ushering him through her house towards the front door.

"Quinn, just wait," he protested as she wrenched the heavy oak door open.

Quinn cut him off again. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said curtly, pushing him out onto the porch. "And I'm not gay!" she shouted one last time before slamming the door in his face.

Bewildered and a little hurt, Sam stood there awkwardly clutching his bag and sneakers to his chest. How had his quirky little declaration of love turn out like this? "Okay, that was weird."

Coming from a kid who went to a high school where people burst into song at the drop of a hat, that was saying something.


	2. Chapter 1

The next morning, Sam dragged his feet as he walked to school, he felt like crap. He'd overslept, missed his morning workout, his mom had been in such a hurry that she didn't separate the yolks from the eggs she used in the omelette he had for breakfast and he was pretty sure he still had marks on his face from where he'd fallen asleep on his keyboard the night before.

Once the shock of being massively denied had worn off, Sam had realized that Quinn had been really upset, like _really_ upset, and he may not have been the sharpest crayon in the box or the brightest knife in the drawer or however that saying went but he knew that something was majorly wrong with his girlfriend, though he'd be damned if he could figure out what it was, so he turned to google to search for answers. When that had proved to be fruitless, since he really had no idea what he should even be googling for, he turned to Yahoo Answers in desperation and was extremely disheartened to find that the top rated answer to his question was "Dude, your girlfriend sounds like a super repressed lesbo, sorry bro." from somebody called Scooter71.

Now that he thought about it, it all seemed to be pretty obvious and Sam felt like a total doofus for not seeing it before. Even the whole having a baby at sixteen thing that Quinn had used the night before as definitive proof of her straightness pointed towards it, as he discovered from his extensive googling on the subject, teen pregnancy is extremely common amongst closeted young gay kids that are in denial about their sexuality.

So, yeah, his girlfriend was a lesbian. Bummer. At least he wasn't really, really in love with her because that would've sucked hard.

He spotted Quinn's little red sedan across the car park and noticed that she was still inside. Sam decided that now would be the perfect time to approach her but as he got closer he realized that she was intently looking out the side window. Curious, he stopped in his tracks and followed her eyeline to find Rachel and Finn, walking hand in hand towards the school, Quinn's head slowly turned as she tracked the couple's progress until they disappeared inside the doors to the school. Once they were out of sight, Quinn's head dropped down to press against the steering wheel.

_Rachel. Quinn likes Rachel._ That...actually made a lot of sense; the way she'd always stare at her during Glee, the way that, although she claimed to hate the tiny brunette, Quinn always did whatever the girl asked of her and then there was the notebook Sam had once found while looking for Quinn's maths notes. Every page of it was filled with drawings of Rachel Berry that alternated between wildly offensive characitures surrounded by love hearts and incredibly detailed drawings that were so dirty they'd made Sam blush and slam the book closed, squeezing his eyes shut as he pictured Coach Beiste in a Cheerio's uniform again. He'd returned the notebook to it's place and never breathed a word about it. Once again, in retrospect, it was more than obvious. Yep, he really was a total doofus for not seeing it.

But now he knew and he couldn't just ignore it. Judging from last night's blow up, this was something that Quinn was struggling with and he wanted to help her.

_Alright, Evans, time to man up and do this,_ he gave himself a mental pep talk, trying to psych himself up as he approached Quinn's car. _You're a sensitive new age guy, you can handle this, no problems. You're just going to tell your girlfriend that she's a lesbian and that it's okay, no big deal._

He paused by Quinn's drivers side where the girl was still hunched over, gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were stark white, with her face pressed against her forearms.

"I hate her for making me feel like this," Quinn's confession was raw, pained and most definitely not meant for anyone's ears but her own.

So Sam waited for a few moments, to spare his girlfriend any further embarrassment, before knocking on her half opened window.

Quinn bolted upright, her hands flying to her face to wipe away the evidence of any stray tears that may have fallen. Now Sam understood why Quinn walked around looking so sad all the time, at first he thought it was because of the whole baby thing but if this was her private reaction to just seeing Rachel and Finn holding hands...Well, even if Finn wasn't getting any, he and Rachel were not shy about their treacly sweet PDAs. Just sitting through Glee must've been torture for Quinn. Thinking about it made Sam feel sick in his stomach, like he'd just eaten a happy meal from McDonalds.

"Hey, Sam," Quinn greeted him, plastering an obviously fake smile on her face.

"Hi." Sam nervously fiddled with the strap of his backpack. How did one start a conversation with their girlfriend about her being a repressed lesbian, anyway? He really should've googled that too.

One thing he was sure of was that this was not a conversation for them to have in public, so he quickly trotted around to the passenger side and got in the car.

"What are you doing?" Quinn asked, looking at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world. "School starts in twenty minutes."

"I know, I just wanted to talk to you about last night."

Quinn's eyes darted away from him, becoming fixed on the dashboard. "What about it?" she asked in a lilting voice.

"You know what I'm talking about."

Quinn sat silently for a moment as her breathing picked up then she turned and reached into the back seat to grab her sports bag. "I have to go," she blurted out. "I totally forgot that I was supposed to meet Coach Sylvester before class-"

Sam reached out, gently touching her arm and stilling her. "Q, we need to talk about it."

"No, we don't," she growled through gritted teeth.

"Look, I'm not going to judge you, if that's what you're worried about."

"I don't care, I'm not gay." Everything inside Quinn was telling her to run, run away from this conversation that was threatening to bring everything that she had worked so hard for crashing down.

"It'd be okay if you were, you know," Sam said quietly with so much sincerity it made Quinn want to cry and rage at him for being so naive at the same time.

Quinn laughed bitterly, it sounded a lot like a sob. "Are you kidding me? No, it wouldn't. You've seen how Kurt gets treated."

"But it'd be different for you, you're a girl." The double standard totally sucked but Sam couldn't deny that it existed. "And, I mean, everyone knows about Brittany and Santana-"

"Brittany and Santana are sluts that'll sleep with anyone who'll look at them twice," Quinn snapped, feeling herself start to unravel. "Nobody takes their relationship seriously right now but if they ever stopped sleeping around and came out as a proper couple, they'd be crucified and Santana knows it."

_Okay, that probably wasn't the best example to use then,_ Sam thought to himself.

"Sam, you just don't understand. I can't be gay. If I was gay and someone found out, my reputation would be ruined, I'd lose everything. I'd be shunned by my church, my mom would kick me out again-"

"You don't know that, she took you back after you had the baby," Sam pointed out.

"Exactly, after I had the baby, once she could pretend that I was never pregnant in the first place." There was a reason 'Deny. Ignore. Repress.' was the unofficial Fabray family motto. "Besides, me getting kicked out again would be the best case scenario, if my father ever found out he'd have me sent away to one of those degaying camps to straighten me out...I'm not gay, Sam. I _can't_ be gay. Not now, not here." This was the closest Quinn had ever come to admitting it out loud to herself, let alone anyone else. "Maybe if we lived somewhere like New York or San Francisco things would be different but we don't. So can we please just forget this ever happened and go back to the way things were?"

Looking into Quinn's beautiful, tear filled, desperately pleading hazel eyes, Sam almost crumbled. "No." Almost crumbled. He had to do what he thought was right, even if Quinn couldn't see that right now.

Quinn nodded sadly, resigning herself to her fate. Sam was going to tell, her life was going to be ruined.

"This is too important for you to ignore, Q. I'm your friend and I want to help you."

"How? By forcing me out of the closet?"

"What? No! I wouldn't do that to you."

"Oh...So how exactly are you going to help me?"

Sam frowned and scratched the back of his neck. He hadn't really thought that far ahead. "Well...you can talk to me about stuff, you know all the stuff that you've been keeping bottled up inside. That'll help, right?...And I'll have your back, Quinn, seriously. Whatever you need."

"That...actually sounds really good," Quinn admitted. Good and terrifying. She'd never had someone she could talk to with one hundred percent honesty before, there was always a huge part of herself that she felt like she had to hide. Now Sam was giving her the opportunity to be herself around him, to be open and honest, and it scared her. But she wanted it. God, more than that, she needed it. "Well, this is definitely the most amicable break up I've ever had," she chuckled to herself.

"Who said that we have to break up?"

Quinn arched an eyebrow at him. "You do realize that you just spent the better part of the last ten minutes trying to get me to admit that I was gay, right?" she said, trying to work out his angle.

"What I mean is, if you want to keep acting like we're dating in public, then I'm cool with it." He smiled sheepishly. "To be honest, dating you helps boost my rep just as much as it helps yours."

"So what you're saying is that you want to be my big gay beard." Quinn smirked, it was the closest she'd come to a real smile all day.

"If you want me to be."

Feeling an overwhelming rush of gratitude, Quinn leaned over the console to hug him tightly. "Thank you, Sam," she breathed out, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from her. She didn't have to pretend with him anymore, for once in her life she didn't have to pretend.

"You're totally welcome."

They drew apart as the warning bell rang.

"I suppose that this goes without saying but-"

"I won't tell a soul," Sam swore and that was enough for Quinn, she knew that the blond boy's word was his bond. "We'd better get to class."

As Quinn gathered her things together, Sam hopped out and jogged around to her side of the vehicle, opening the car door and presenting his hand to her. "M'lady?"

Quinn laughed, shaking her head at his antics. She knew that she'd really lucked out with this one. She couldn't imagine Puck being this sweet about everything. "Dork," she said, taking his hand anyway.

###

It was like Quinn's little breakdown had opened the floodgates on her tightly controlled emotions. Now she couldn't stop her eyes from seeking Rachel out in the halls between classes and at lunch, she was just glad that they didn't share any classes that day or she wouldn't have gotten any work done she would have been so pre-occupied with staring at her. Stupid Sam, making her feel feelings, this was all his fault.

Of course the downside of not being able to take her eyes off Rachel was that nowadays Finn was always in the picture too. They were sickening together. He was far too tall for her, for one thing, Rachel had to crane her head all the way back just to look up at him, that couldn't be good for her neck. And Rachel spent so much time looking at Finn -kissing Finn- that Quinn was genuinely concerned that her neck would get stuck that way, like the tiny dog down the well in that story she read one time...Okay, so maybe that wasn't very likely, but still, Quinn did not like them together and if Finn and Rachel were nauseatingly 'cute' together during the normal school day, it was nothing compared to how they were in Glee.

Quinn sat up the back of the choir room, flanked by Sam -who was practicing his written Na'vi in his notebook- and Santana -who was occupied with glaring down at Artie and Brittany, no doubt fantasizing about ways to creatively maim the wheelchair bound boy. Quinn had once caught her drawing up a detailed plan to roll Artie of the diving tower and into the school's pool without being caught.-. With them both distracted, it left Quinn free to stare at Rachel without detection.

Rachel was tracing the lines of Finn's large palm while Finn practically ignored her in favor of discussing video games with Puck. Quinn could barely stand it. Finn had Rachel pathetically devoted to him and he didn't even appreciate it. He didn't appreciate her and it made Quinn want to scream.

Sam looked to his left and immediately noticed Quinn's forlorn staring at the Glee club's golden couple. _Wow, has she always been this obvious?_ He gently poked his fake girlfriend in the arm with his pen to get her attention. "You okay?" he asked softly, once she'd torn her gaze away from Rachel.

Quinn nodded at him, making a half-assed attempt at a smile before going back to her Rachel gazing.

Perturbed, Sam pursed his lips, quickly scrawling something in his notebook and poking Quinn again to draw her attention to it.

_- I no u leik Rahcel._

Quinn's face crumpled into a pained grimace. She really should've expected this, it's not like she'd exactly been subtle, but then again it was Sam and the boy wasn't exactly known for his keen observational skills. She'd been about to reply when Mr. Schuester came striding into the room, talking excitedly about a new assignment he had for them that he just knew they'd all enjoy.

Sighing, Quinn took the pen from Sam's hand and wrote a note of her own.

_- Come to my house later, we'll talk._


	3. Chapter 2

One of the perks, Sam discovered, to being Quinn's fake boyfriend as opposed to her real one was that he was allowed into her bedroom, which was way less creepy than the Fabray's study. Well, except for the large portrait of Jesus on the wall above Quinn's bed. Sam felt like it was judging him and was filled with the near uncontrollable urge to cross himself every time he looked at it.

"So, Rachel..." he began tentatively after spending the last ten minutes since he'd arrived in silence.

"Yep."

"You like Rachel."

"I love Rachel," Quinn corrected him. She couldn't be bothered denying it anymore, it was exhausting.

"Wow, that's pretty heavy," Sam breathed out, nervously scratching his ear. "So how long have you been in love with her?"

Quinn shifted on the bed and sighed. "I don't know."

"You don't know? You mean it wasn't love at first sight?" Inwardly, Sam cringed at himself. _Geeze, Sam, sound more like a girl._

"No." Quinn chuckled, shaking her head. Definitely not love at first sight. "I remember when I first noticed her though. Like really noticed her. It was the day I was became head Cheerio. It was a big deal, you know, I was the first sophomore to ever be named captain of the squad and the whole school knew it. When I walked down the hall, everyone looked at me, they saw me coming and they parted like the Red Sea for me..." The rush of power Quinn had felt that day had been intoxicating and she'd instantly become addicted to it. "Everyone except Rachel, she just ran right into me. She hadn't noticed me, she had no idea who I was. I was furious. Then she smiled at me and apologized and said that she hadn't seen me and that just made me even madder."

"She humiliated me in front of the whole school without even trying then walked away like it was nothing," Quinn reminisced. "After that I just wanted her to pay attention to me, like everyone else did, so I made it impossible for her to ignore me. I started insulting her, every day."

Of course, this had the unintended consequence of Rachel becoming the target of all the other jocks and cheerleaders who dwelled lower on the social totem pole than Quinn and saw the openly displayed hostility their Queen Bee held towards the girl. They tormented Rachel hoping to gain Quinn's approval.

"Pretty soon, torturing Rachel became the best part of my day, which is pretty pathetic when you stop and think about it, so I started doing it more and more often. I even started planning my whole day around it...one time, me and Santana hid in a stall in the girl's bathroom for forty minutes just so I could get in a crack at Rachel about getting ready for the tranny prom."

Sam frowned, this didn't sound like the Quinn he knew. She could be a bitch sometimes, sure, but she wasn't sadistic. But he kept his mouth shut and let her continue, knowing that this was the first time Quinn had ever let herself tell the story and she needed to get it all out.

"Then I started dreaming about her...you know, sex dreams," she whispered the last part, her eyes darting guiltily to the painting of Jesus like it was going to spring to life and smite her on the spot.

"I prayed for them to stop." Oh, how she prayed. She'd spent hours on her knees, hands clasped tightly together, crying, begging God to take away her dirty, sinful thoughts and make her pure again. "But they just got worse, I even started daydreaming about it in class." Even now, Quinn sounded disgusted with herself.

That had been the first day that Quinn had ever drawn a pornographic picture of Rachel Berry and she hadn't even know that she was doing it. She'd just come out of her daydream and there it was, instead of her notes on Chemistry there was a large, crude drawing Rachel in a very compromising position with a girl that Quinn refused to believe was herself. She'd gasped loudly and flipped the page over, beyond mortified. Santana had been sitting beside her and if she'd seen it, Quinn knew that she wouldn't give a second thought to using it to bring her down and elevate her own status at the same time. Trembling with fear, Quinn had excused herself to go to the bathroom where she'd sobbed her heart out before withdrawing a black Sharpie from her bag and scribbling the very first instalment of 'Tranny Porn' on the stall wall.

"Then Finn joined Glee club, he started spending time with her and it was beyond obvious that she had feelings for him and I was jealous...I was jealous of Finn, my boyfriend, because he got to spend time with the girl I supposedly hated. It was...confusing," Quinn breathed out, remembering the inner turmoil she'd gone through. "Then one day, Rachel dropped her books in the hall and she bent down to pick them up and...well, you know those skirts she always likes to wear?"

Sam nodded. Oh yeah, he and the majority of the male population at McKinley had a healthy appreciation for those skirts that Rachel liked to wear.

"Well, I caught myself looking up it. I was standing there in the middle of the hall, looking up Rachel's skirt, practically drooling like some damned pervert." A sob ripped from Quinn's throat and a tear fell from her eye. Sam put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "I didn't even know what I was doing until Santana called me out on it. I told her that I was checking to see if Rachel really was a tranny but I'm pretty sure that Santana saw right through me...That was the night I invited Puck and his wine coolers over. I told him that I was feeling fat that day..."

"But really you were feeling gay?" Sam guessed.

Quinn nodded, wiping at her wet cheeks with her hand. "I thought that if I had sex with Puck it would prove that I wasn't. I thought it would _fix_ me. But it was awful and I hated every second of it and I felt even worse afterwards than I did before. Then I got pregnant and Rachel was so nice to me, even after everything that I did to her. And I'm not delusional, I know most of it was for Finn's benefit but there were times when she went out of her way to be kind to me when nobody else cared. I think that's when it became more than a crush," Quinn concluded.

"And now you're in love with her," said Sam. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Quinn drew back and looked at him like he was crazy. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"What can I do, Sam? Rachel's straight! She's in love with Finn and even if she wasn't she still wouldn't want anything to do with me, did you not hear how I used to treat her?"

Sam shook his head. "Look, all I know is that right now you're miserable, so clearly this whole doing nothing approach is not working out for you."

"What else can I do?" Quinn practically begged for him to give her an alternative. She'd been fighting her feelings for so long, she was so tired and pretending to hate Rachel kept getting harder and harder.

"Uhhhh..." Sam frowned as he tried to think of a solution, he hadn't expected to be put on the spot like that. "You could be nice to her? If you show her that you've changed, maybe you two could even become friends."

"Because that won't tank my reputation."

Sam scoffed at her. "After last year, you think being friends with Rachel is going to be what tanks your reputation? You lost everything and then managed to get it all back in like a day. You're the most powerful student in the school and what's the point in having that power if you can't use it to make yourself happy?"

Quinn bit her lip, mulling over Sam's pep talk. It would be nice to have a girl friend, not a girlfriend girl friend, but a friend that was a girl. Santana was her frenemy, a duplicitous second-in-command, just waiting for an opening to perform a coup and Brittany's allegiance would always lie with Santana, even if they were currently going through a rough patch. And Quinn's friendship with Mercedes had fizzled out almost as quickly as it had began once Quinn had moved back home with her mother. It wasn't surprising really, seeing as their friendship had been built on a foundation of them both being fat and a mutual love of bacon; once Quinn had her baby and dropped the extra pounds and her bacon craving, they really didn't have much in common anymore.

"Rachel really does need a friend," she said softly. It couldn't be healthy for Rachel's only friend to be her boyfriend as well. Who could she bitch to about all the dumb things that Finn did? Quinn knew from experience, that when dating Finn Hudson, you needed someone to vent to, she swore that that boy was to stupid to live sometimes.

Sam grinned, pleased to have helped. "Excellent."

"So how am I going to convince Rachel to be my friend when she thinks that I hate her?"

Sam opened his mouth then snapped it shut again when he realized that he didn't have an answer for her. Forehead wrinkling in concentration, he rested his chin on his fist, adopting the classic pose of The Thinker.

They sat in silence, both struggling to think of a way to trick Rachel into being Quinn's friend. This was going to be a long night.

###

Sam had stayed for a few hours, until Quinn's mother had discovered him in Quinn's room and gone insane and threw him out of the house. Now he definitely knew where Quinn got it from.

In all the time they'd spent plotting together, the best Sam and Quinn had come up with was "Be nicer to Rachel", which wasn't a very impressive plan at all, especially when Quinn had no idea how to execute it. How the hell was she supposed to be nice to Rachel? She couldn't just start acting like they were friends, Rachel knew her well enough by now that she'd be suspicious of her motives.

Without Sam around to keep her grounded in her thoughts, Quinn was at a loose end. She couldn't stay still and she was sure she was going to wear a hole in her carpet if she kept pacing around.

Eventually, Quinn settled in front of her computer, intending on doing her homework but somehow ending up browsing Rachel's myspace instead. She'd always loved Rachel's voice, even when she'd been laboring under the delusion that she hated the singer, and checking Rachel's myspace videos every day had become part of her routine. Then one day, Quinn had made the mistake of watching one at school with her headphones in. It wasn't until the video had finished that Quinn realized that she was surrounded by five of her team mates.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ashley Stephens, a senior, had snarled at her.

Quinn had panicked in the face of her peers scrutiny and quickly typed 'If I were you, I'd kill myself' into the comment box, hitting send before she had time to think about what she was doing. The girls surrounding her had started giggling like demented hyenas and thus a new Cheerios tradition was born. Just thinking about it now made Quinn feel sick.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, Quinn clicked through to the video section. Although there'd been a downturn in the production of the videos, obviously Rachel had better things to do now that she was dating Finn -yet another reason to hate him-, they were still being posted. The last had been uploaded two weeks ago.

Quinn clicked on it and was filled with annoyance that the only comments were from a few Cheerios that still hadn't gotten over the joke. She noted their names and promised to punish them at practice the next day.

She hit play and smiled to herself as Rachel introduced the song "Part Of Your World" from the Walt Disney classic The Little Mermaid.

The way Quinn felt whenever she listened to Rachel sing was indescribable. She wouldn't be lying if she said it was her favorite sound in the whole world and for those precious few minutes it was like Rachel was singing just to her.

Once the song had ended and she'd played it again -three or six more times- Quinn moved the cursor down to the comment box. While she wanted to write enormous paragraphs about how sorry she was and how she thought that Rachel was the most amazingly talented person in the world, Quinn knew that would be coming on way too strongly, so she simply typed 'I love this song' and then spent half an hour debating whether or not to put a smiley face at the beginning or the end of the short sentence. Eventually, she decided it looked better at the end.

It was only later that it occurred to Quinn that Rachel may not even see the comment that she had left. She knew that she'd certainly stop reading the feedback if all she ever got was brutal abuse.

Still, she'd gone to bed feeling good about herself for the first time in a long time. Operation: Make Rachel Berry My Friend had begun.


	4. Chapter 3

"So you left a nice comment on her myspace video?" Sam asked, stacking his books in his locker.

"Yes." Quinn fidgeted nervously, she'd made a start but she had no idea what her next move should be. It wasn't like she could just go up to Rachel and ask her if she wanted to hang out...or could she? Quinn envisioned herself doing just that and Rachel reacting by slapping her in the face. No, she couldn't.

"I didn't think anybody actually still used myspace."

"She does." Quinn shrugged as Sam closed his locker and shouldered his bag. "Walk me to class?"

"Sure."

She looped her arm through his and they made their way down the hall, the unwashed masses scurried out of the way of the King and Queen of McKinley. Yes, it was good to be on top again. Then, out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw Karofsky pass by with a cherry slushie in hand. "Oh no."

Before Sam could register what had Quinn suddenly so upset, Karofsky had tossed the full contents of the huge cup into Rachel's unsuspecting face without even breaking his stride. Sam winced in sympathy for the poor girl, who was running off towards the nearest bathroom, he knew the icy, humiliating bitchslap of a slushie to the face all too well. "You want to go after her?"

"Always," Quinn replied, not moving an inch. "Come on, I need to get to Spanish."

Sam grimaced but let himself be led along anyway. "I don't know how they keep getting away with it," he said. "The faculty never would have let it happen at my old school, they'd be too afraid of getting sued."

"That's it!" Quinn exclaimed, turning to him with a wide smile on her face. "You're a genius." She leaned up and pecked him on the cheek.

Sam didn't know what he'd done to deserve the praise, other than to point out the obvious, but he didn't get called a genius every day, or ever really, so he'd gladly take it. "Yes. Yes, I am."

###

That afternoon, Quinn strode into Principal Figgins office with a sense of purpose.

"Quinn Fabray, you cannot just come waltzing in here without an appointment," Figgins sputtered at her, clearly intimidated by the head cheerleaders dominant presence. It was a well known fact that their principal wilted in the face of a powerful, confident woman; it was the only explanation for Sue Sylvester getting away with even half the crap she pulled.

"You have a serious problem with bullying in this school," Quinn began with no preamble.

"Thanks in no small part to you and your Cheerios, Miss Fabray."

"Yes, well," Quinn was shocked that he'd dare to stand up to her, maybe that dose of Monkey Flu had given him a backbone. "I'm working on that. But you need to do something about the slushie attacks."

"And what would you have me do about them? You children get them from the 7-11 down the street, I cannot control what you buy there."

Or maybe not. Quinn stared at the spineless principal in disbelief. "But you can control what your students bring into this school. You can ban slushies and suspend any student caught carrying them on school grounds."

"That would mean suspending half the football and hockey teams!" Figgins protested. "I'm sorry, Miss Fabray, but my hands are tied on this matter."

Unimpressed, Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Is that what you're going to tell the parents of one of the victims when they finally wise up and file a lawsuit?"

Figgins paled. "Lawsuit?"

Quinn nodded, knowing that she was on the right track. All Figgins was concerned about was money. "It's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt; someone could be blinded by the corn syrup or they could slip in a puddle of slushie and crack their head open on the floor. They'd be able to sue the school for millions. There'll be a media circus, and once it gets out that the faculty have know this was happening all along but didn't do anything to stop it, the press will be so bad the school board will have no choice but to fire you. Are you willing to risk that just so some neanderlithic jocks can continue to get their jollies by assaulting their fellow students?"

Figgins tugged on his collar and cleared his throat and Quinn knew that she had him on the ropes. "I'll see what I can do, Miss Fabray."

She smirked victoriously at him. "I'm sure you will."

###

"What are you so happy about?"

Riding high on a feeling of selfless benevolence and accomplishment, Quinn turned her head slightly to look at her 'boyfriend' who was draped all over her, they had to keep up appearances after all. "You'll see."

When the announcement of a special assembly had come over the PA system during homeroom, Quinn had almost jumped out of her seat in excitement. It could only mean that her little chat with Figgins the other day had done the trick and, even if Rachel never knew that Quinn was responsible for it, the diminutive brunette's life was about to get a hell of a lot easier.

"Settle down, children!" Figgins ordered the unruly teens. "Quiet now!"

Quinn's gaze went to Mr. Schuester, who was seated directly behind the principal, his eyes were darting back and forth between Ms. Pillsbury and the emergency exit,; no doubt he was mentally calculating how quickly he could get to the guidance counselor and whisk her away to safety should a riot break out. Her eyes flicked from Schue to Rachel who was sitting two people across and three rows down, giving Quinn a prefect view. She couldn't wait to see the look on Rachel's face when Figgins made his big announcement.

"-do you know how much it costs to get the stains out of the linoleum? We do not have the budget for this!" Figgins was saying once Quinn tuned back into him. Was he really making this about the cost to the school rather than the blatant bullying problem? "From this moment on, slushies are banned from William McKinley High School and any student caught carrying one on school grounds will immediately face a three day suspension, no exceptions!"

The reaction was instantaneous and deafening, the loud boos from the jocks were almost drowned out by the screams of joy from the geeks -lead by one Jacob Ben Israel, of course-. Grinning from ear to ear, Quinn turned to Rachel, expecting to see the same happiness written on her face. But Rachel didn't look happy, she looked...troubled, worried, like when Mr. Schue made her compete for solos. She faked a smile when Finn turned to her but as soon as he turned back around to jubilantly high five Artie, the smile dropped. What was that about?

_This was supposed to make her happy,_ Quinn thought, now frowning too. _So why does she look like somebody just threatened to burn all her sheet music?_


	5. Chapter 4

As soon as they were let out of the assembly, Rachel excused herself from Finn and headed for the nearest girl's bathroom. Sensing her opportunity, and after waiting the appropriate amount of time so it wouldn't look like she was stalking her, Quinn followed her in.

"What's the matter with you?" Quinn said, trying her hardest to sound like she didn't care as she joined Rachel in front of the mirror and went about pretending to touch up her make up. "I thought that you of all people would be pleased about this."

Rachel sighed deeply and looked down at her hands that were clenched around the edge of the sink. "While I admit it'll be a relief not end every day with a visit to the dry cleaners, I can't help but feel a sense of foreboding, like this ban on slushies is only going to make things worse."

Quinn paused in the application of her mascara. "Worse?"

"The bullying isn't going to stop just because they can't bring slushies to school anymore, you of all people should know that, Quinn. They're just going to have to get a little more creative and find another, maybe even worse, way to torment us," Rachel explained, looking thoroughly miserable. "At least I know how to deal with slushies...I've had years of practice."

"So this is like a better the devil you know situation," Quinn concluded, putting her mascara back in her make up bag and zipping it up.

Rachel smiled grimly. "Precisely."

Quinn felt awful, all traces of the triumph she'd been feeling had evaporated. By trying to make things better for Rachel, it seemed like she'd only succeeded in making them worse.

"Well, you never know, maybe this'll be a wake up call for those neanderthals and they'll realize that what they're doing is cruel and pointless," she offered, knowing that it'd never happen.

At that, Rachel smiled, but it was the same smile Quinn had seen her give Finn earlier; fake and forced and Quinn hated it. "Perhaps. I'll see you in Glee, Quinn," she said, slipping out the bathroom door without looking back.

###

"Hey, Q!"

Quinn stopped to wait for Sam as he came jogging up to her in the hall.

"What's the matter?" he asked when he reached her, slinging his arm around her shoulders. "This morning you couldn't stop smiling but now you look like Peter Parker after he found out that MJ was engaged to John Jameson."

Quinn looked at him blankly. Peter Parker was Spiderman, right? "I have no idea what that means."

"It means that you look sad." Sam knew better than to try to explain it to her.

They came to a stop at her locker.

"My plan totally backfired."

Sam frowned and glanced around the hallway, where once the bottomfeeders hugged the walls in fear, they now strode proud and unafraid down the middle of the hall. "Really? Doesn't look like it to me, you've made a lot of people happy."

"But it didn't make Rachel happy and that was the whole point. All I've done is upset her again," Quinn revealed in a hushed voice.

"Why's she upset?" Was Rachel secretly a masochist? Did she enjoy the stinging pain of a slushie to the face? Were they secretly good for her skin or something?

"Because she's smart enough to know that nature abhors a vacuum."

"Huh?"

"It means that they aren't going to stop, they're just going to find a new way to make sure the geeks know their place."

"Pop quiz, Jewfro, what came first the chicken or the egg?" Azimio's voice boomed from down the hall.

Sam and Quinn turned in time to see him crush a raw egg on Jacob's head.

"See what I mean?" she asked, over the sound of Jewfro's nasal whine.

This was bad, this was so very bad.

###

By that afternoon, several more students had been either been egged or doused with ketchup -it seemed like the jocks were having a hard time deciding between the two- and the glee club was abuzz with the news.

"I heard JBI might have to shave off his fro just to get all the shell out," Mercedes revealed with gleeful relish.

"It'd be an improvement," Kurt sniffed, smoothing down the lapels of his expensive designer jacket.

A hush fell over the room when Rachel entered, Finn trailing uselessly behind her, her hair was wet and it looked like she had been crying. She sniffled audibly as she took her seat in the front row.

"What's the matter with her?" asked Tina, looking vaguely concerned.

"Karofsky and Azimio egged her," said Finn, putting his arm around Rachel, awkwardly trying to comfort his girlfriend and keep his sleeve dry at the same time.

"And she's crying about it?" Mercedes scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Drama queen."

"I can see why she'd be upset," Santana began, unfolding her arms and leaning forward in her seat. She looked like a snake uncoiling itself and preparing to strike. "She has the souls of those poor baby chicks on her conscience now."

Rachel's lower lip trembled as she whimpered and Quinn didn't understand why Finn wasn't stepping in to put a stop to it.

"I bet she'll be having nightmares about adorable little balls of yellow fluff coming after her for revenge, trying to peck out her eyes," Santana continued with a viscous smile. She could feel all eyes on her and she loved it.

"Santana," Quinn finally snapped sharply. "That's enough."

Santana huffed but did as she was told, reclining back in her chair and folding her arms across her pumped up chest.

"Well, it's her own fault," Mercedes picked up where Santana left off. "She's the one that chooses to be vegan, if she just ate meat like the rest of us then she wouldn't be so damn traumatized about this."

"Yeah, you really shouldn't be so upset, Rachel. Egg yolk is a wonderful natural conditioner for dry, damaged hair like yours," Kurt said in a sincere attempt to be comforting.

"Alright guys," Mr. Schuester clapped his hands together, bringing their attention to the front of the classroom. Yes, this had all been happening right under their teacher's nose and he hadn't done a thing to stop it. Sometimes, like when instead of making an effort to stop the pregnant girl from getting slushied he'd just laughed and assured her that she had twelve people to help clean her off after it happened, Quinn really hated Mr. Schuester. "I have a great idea for a new number for Sectionals!"

###

Over the next few days, mustard was added to the list of things the less fortunate students of McKinley were being assaulted with. Although egging remained the hot favorite to replace slushie facials, the jocks had discovered a certain fondness for turning people in giant walking hot dogs. And yet again, not a single member of the faculty lifted a finger to stop it.

"This is all my fault," Quinn lamented to Sam as they waited by his locker for the bell to ring and classes to begin.

"There's no way you could've know this would happen," he tried to reassure her.

"But I should've. I know how these idiots operate, I should've expected this."

There was a commotion down the hall, Sam and Quinn both turned to look. They could see the tops of Karofsky and Azimio's heads above the crowd that moved around them, and judging by the way the word 'fag' was being used, loudly and liberally, by the both of them Quinn knew that Kurt must've been their victim.

Quinn's grip on Sam's arm tightened painfully, to the point where he was sure that the half-moon marks left by her nails would be permanent, when the crowd thinned and Rachel could be seen standing up to the two bullies.

"-it's a well know fact that many perpetrators of homophobic bullying, such as yourselves, are often lashing out because they can't deal with their own repressed homosexual desires," Rachel's shrill voice carried down the hall.

Karofsky's nostrils flared and his face went red with rage, he reminded Quinn of that bull in the old Warner Brothers cartoons she watched as a kid. Grunting, he seized Rachel by her arms, easily lifting her off her feet and slamming her tiny body against the lockers behind her.


	6. Chapter 5

Quinn didn't see Kurt's pale, terrified expression or the look of surprise on Azimio's face, all she saw was red. Fuelled by pure unadulterated rage that Karofsky would dare put his hands on a woman, on _Rachel_, Quinn stalked down the hall towards them, shoving aside a freshman that was unfortunate enough to innocently wander into her path.

"Let her go," she commanded, baring her teeth at the jock that was pinning Rachel against the hard metal lockers.

Azimio smirked at her. "Oh look, it's the head _queer_leader, come to defend her little gay club," he jibed.

Quinn bristled even more, clenching her fists at her sides. She had years worth of pent up anger and frustration just begging to be unleashed. "Let her go," she repeated, fixing Karofsky with the deadliest glare that she had in her arsenal.

"You heard Quinn, put Rachel down," Sam ordered from behind her. Internally, Quinn breathed a sigh of relief that he was there backing her up because she knew that if the situation got physical she wouldn't have stood a chance on her own. "Now."

If Karofsky heard them he didn't give any indication of it. His eyes were still fixed on Rachel, his mouth twisted into an angry snarl. To her credit, Rachel refused to back down, glaring back at him with just as much venom. She looked like she was about to bite off Karofsky's nose if he didn't put her down within the next ten seconds and, knowing Rachel, Quinn wouldn't be surprised if she actually tried to.

Azimio Adams may have been dumb but he wasn't stupid, when McKinley's newest power couple ordered you to do something, you did it. Especially when Quinn had the power to blacklist you from dating any of her Cheerio's. "Come on, man," he said, grabbing his friend's broad shoulders and not so gently pulling him away from Rachel. "These freaks ain't even worth it anyways."

Karofsky snorted, turning his menacing glare away from Rachel and settling it on an ashen Kurt who was huddled up against the lockers. "I'll be seeing you real soon, Hummel," he growled then shoulder checked the smaller boy as he passed by.

Sam reached out and steadied Kurt, who looked like he was about to fall over at any second. "Kurt, you okay? You look like you're about to puke."

Kurt swallowed hard and nodded shakily. "Y-yes, I'm fine. Thank you," he said, sounding frail.

But Quinn wasn't listening to them, she'd been diligently monitoring the two jocks retreat, just in case they decided to come back for more, when she noticed something that had made her blood boil. Finn was standing at his open locker, his eyes wide and mouth flapping open like he was a fish on dry land. He'd been watching. He'd seen Rachel, his girlfriend, being thrown into a locker and he hadn't done a damn thing about it. In that moment, for the slightest second, Quinn actually wanted to kill him.

"Thank you for stepping in, Quinn," Rachel's soft voice pulled Quinn out of her homicidal thoughts and refocused her attention on the girl in front of her. "You too, Sam."

Forgetting herself for a moment, Quinn stepped closer, gently laying a hand on Rachel's forearm. "Are you alright?"

Rachel looked down at Quinn's hand as though it was a foreign object. Quinn Fabray was touching her? Willingly? "I'm quite alright. To be honest, I'm more concerned about Kurt."

Quinn frowned, looking around for their fellow glee club member and finding him to be missing. She'd been so focused on Finn and then Rachel that she hadn't even noticed that he'd left. "Kurt?"

Rachel nodded, looking deadly serious. "Yes, I know that he's always been bullied but lately Karofsky's just taking it to a whole new level...I'm really worried about him."

From what she'd just seen, Quinn certainly didn't blame her.

###

Waiting outside the boys locker room was not the way that Quinn had imagined spending her lunch hour when she'd gotten up that morning. But, then again, she hadn't imagined she'd risk her social status by standing up to the two biggest bullies in school on Rachel Berry's behalf either, so she figured she may as well continue with the roll she was on.

"Hey," Sam greeted her, emerging from the locker room.

Quinn perked up. "Is he in there alone?"

"Yeah, I told him that I dropped half a roll of Lifesavers in his locker, he's still looking for them."

"Thanks, Sam."

He grinned at her. "Hey, this is what lesbros are for."

"Right," Quinn agreed, even though she had no idea what a lesbro actually was.

"Do you want me to wait?"

Quinn paused with her hand on the door. "It's alright, this shouldn't take long. I'll see you at rehearsal."

###

Sam was right, Finn was still rooting through his locker for the nonexistant candy when she entered the locker room, Quinn wrinkled her nose at the smell -would it kill them to use some air freshener in there?- and approached him. "Finn?"

Finn jumped, banging his head against the roof of his locker. "Q-Quinn," he stammered in surprise. "What are you doing in here? You aren't here to try and get me to go out with you again are you?"

"No, Finn, I'm not," she said flatly, settling her hands on her hips.

"Oh good," he breathed in relief. It hard been hard enough to turn her down the first time, he didn't know if had the willpower to do it again.

"I'm here to ask you why the hell you didn't do anything this morning when Karofsky and Azimio were harassing Kurt? I know you saw them."

Finn was confused, since when did Quinn give a damn about Kurt? "Look, you have no idea what it's like for me, Quinn, okay? I'm the captain of this team, I need these guys to respect me. It's bad enough that I'm in Glee club and dating Rachel, they already think I'm gay, I don't need to give them any extra ammo."

"Kurt is going to be your stepbrother and Rachel is your girlfriend, do you really care more about your reputation than you do their safety?" Quinn pressed.

"Rachel's a girl, they're not going to hurt her. Not really," he denied, looking away from his furious ex-girlfriend.

"Karofsky shoved her into a locker!"

Angry at her for challenging him like this and angry at himself for knowing that he deserved it, Finn turned on her. "Why do you even care? You can't come in here and lecture me about Rachel when you've always been mean to her!"

"I'm not the one dating her, Finn! If I were, I'd stand up for her. I'd actually care when other people put her down. If Rachel was my girlfriend, I'd be able to compliment her without insulting her in the same breath-" Quinn ranted, letting her frustration get the better of her.

"Okay, I don't understand what's happening right now," Finn said slowly, completely bewildered. Quinn _hated_ Rachel, if anybody knew the depths of the hatred Quinn held towards his girlfriend, it was him. So why was she talking about what she would do if Rachel was her girlfriend?

Quinn clenched her eyes shut, taking a moment to get a hold of herself. "What I'm trying to say is that you are being a sucky boyfriend to Rachel and an awful friend to Kurt. They both deserve better than that and I know you well enough to know that somewhere inside that pea sized brain of yours, there's a guy that is capable of being what they need."

"But why are you doing this? You don't even like them."

_Because I'm in love with your girlfriend, you moron._ "Because somebody has to," Quinn said instead. Her skirt flared out as she turned on her heel and exited the locker room as quickly as she'd entered it, hoping that at least some of what she had said had penetrated her ex-boyfriend's thick skull.

###

Evidently her harsh words had had the desired effect on Finn. For the rest of the day, Finn shadowed Rachel everywhere, glowering at anyone who got too close to the fun sized singer. Then in Glee he went over the top with praise for his girlfriend, which given Finn's rather limited vocabulary, was painful for all of them except Rachel who soaked up the compliments like a tiny attention starved sponge. Santana had finally put a stop to it by threatening to beat Finn to death the next time the word 'awesome' came out of his mouth. Mr. Schue had stepped in immediately, assuring Finn that he wasn't going to let Santana lay a hand on him but Finn had been scared enough to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the lesson.

"So, don't get me wrong, I don't mind that you're here," Sam huffed. He was currently laying on his bedroom floor doing crunches. Shirtless. And Quinn hadn't even spared him a second glance, she was definitely a capital-G gay. "But why are you going through my iTunes?"

Quinn pursed her lips and continued scrolling through Sam's music library. For a supposedly straight teenage boy, he had an extraordinarily large collection of songs by Kelly Clarkson and Taylor Swift. "I want to sing a song to Rachel."

Sam paused mid-crunch, ignoring the burning in his abdomen. "Really? I didn't think you were anywhere near ready to come out like that. That's like going all warp speed."

"Well, she won't actually know that I'm singing it to her," Quinn sheepishly admitted. "I was thinking that if you sat behind her then everyone will just assume that I'm singing it to you."

He grinned at the thought of being serenaded, even if it would be fake. "That could work," he said, jumping up and wiping the sweat off the back of his neck with a towel. "Do you have any particular song in mind?"

Quinn cringed at the feeling of Sam's bare torso pressing against her arm as he came to stand next to her. "Ew, you're all sweaty!" she exclaimed, pushing him away. "Put a shirt on."

Sam was aghast at the suggestion. "And cover up perfection?" He pouted, running his hand across the sculpted abs he worked so hard to maintain.

Quinn just rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer, determined to find the perfect song to sing to Rachel. Problem was, she didn't even recognize half the names of the bands that Sam had in his collection. Although Quinn kept up with the current Top 40 in an effort to maintain the illusion that she fit in with her peers, she still preferred the music of the 50's, 60's and 70's that she'd listened to while growing up to anything modern. She'd never admit it to anyone but her favorite singer ever was Dusty Springfield.

"Sam...why do you have like a million mp3s of Kurt singing on your computer?"


	7. Chapter 6

The next day in Glee, Quinn could barely contain herself, she felt sick with nerves –she had butterflies in her tummy, that never happened to her! She was Quinn Fabray, she did not get nervous about performing- and having Santana constantly kicking the back of her chair certainly wasn't helping.

"You don't have to do this, you know," Sam reminded her in a whisper.

"No, I want to," Quinn replied. She'd been up all night rehearsing and she couldn't all that effort go to waste. Besides, she didn't know if she'd ever get up the courage to do this again.

Mr. Schuester paused in his unimportant ramblings, unable to continue when Brittany was sitting in front of him looking genuinely terrified. "What's the matter, Brittany?"

"Rachel's sweater won't stop staring at me," Brittany whimpered, drawing closer to her boyfriend.

Schuester's jaw dropped, his attention shifting to Rachel who was looking down at her sweater with a wounded expression. It wasn't like he could ask her to take it off, even if the owl with the incredibly huge eyes on the front was deeply unsettling, that would be inappropriate.

There was a uncomfortable moment, nobody knowing what to do, until Santana stood up with a loud, long suffering sigh and threw herself into the chair that was directly in the line of Rachel's sweater's sight, blocking it from Brittany's view. "Better?"

Brittany nodded, smiling, relieved that the owl could no longer see her. "Thanks, S."

"Mr. Schue," Quinn said, raising her hand before Schue could start talking again. "I have a song that I'd like to sing."

Schue looked surprised but pleased, it wasn't often that Quinn took the initiative to perform a solo. "Okay, Quinn, the floor is yours," he said, graciously stepping aside.

Battling her nerves, Quinn rose from her seat and went about handing the sheet music she'd printed out to the band. She grabbed the mic stand and moved it to the center of the room, not trusting the power of her own voice. She looked out at her audience, Santana looked bored, the others only mildly interested but Sam was grinning and giving her an enthusiastic two thumbs up. She was Quinn Fabray, she had fearlessly lead dozens of Cheerios routines in front of thousands of people, she could do this. Taking a deep breath, she nodded to the band and the intro to her song began to play.

"I'm sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream, like all at once I wake up from something that keep knocking at my brain," she began, her voice weak and breathy. _Come on, Q, get it together!_ "Before I go insane, I hold my pillow to my head and spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread. I think I love you!"

To her surprise Quinn had found the perfect song, not in Sam's music collection or her own but in her mother's. Judy had been dancing around the kitchen to the old David Cassidy song when Quinn had arrived home from Sam's and Quinn had instantly felt a deep emotional connection to the lyrics, feeling like they perfectly described her current situation.

"This morning, I woke up with this feeling, I didn't know how to deal with and so I just decided to myself, I'd hide it to myself and never talk about it and didn't I go and shout it when you walked into the room," Quinn continued, her voice and confidence growing stronger as her friends started getting into her performance, swaying from side to side in their seats. Even Rachel was smiling at her in admiration.

"I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of," Quinn launched into the chorus. "I'm afraid that I'm not sure of, a love there is no cure for. I think I love you, isn't that what life is made of. Though it worries me to say that I've never felt this way."

Now the whole club was waving their hands in the air along with the music, except Puck who was waving his lighter from side to side like he was at a rock concert.

"I don't know what I'm up against, I don't know what it's all about, I've got so much to think about. Hey!" Quinn tossed her head back, wishing that she'd thought to take her hair our it's tight ponytail so she could include some hairography in her performance as she repeated the chorus.

"Believe me, you really don't have to worry," Quinn sang, her eyes now fully focused on Rachel. "I only want to make you happy and if you say hey, go away, I will. But I think I better stay around and love you. Do you think I have a case, let me ask you to your face, do you think you love me? I think I love you!"

The room burst into applause as Quinn finished out the song, Finn even turned around to high-five Sam, who was cheering the loudest of them all, to congratulate him on officially winning Quinn's affections.

Blushing, Quinn quietly thanked them and made her way back to her seat, not even daring to spare a glance at Rachel.

"You did great," her one man cheer squad praised her, kissing her cheek when she sat down.

Santana scoffed. "Pathetic," she sneered at them. "It's like watching two Golden Retrievers slobber all over each other."

Quinn just rolled her eyes and ignored her. Ever since Brittany and Artie had officially become a couple, Santana had become increasingly obnoxious, lashing out at everything and everyone to get attention. It was sad really.

"That was very good, Quinn," Mr. Schuester announced, taking his place at the front of the class. "And a perfect example of this week's assignment!"

It was? She hadn't even known there was an assignment.

Quinn just smiled to herself and prepared to make her next move. The song was just the first step in her genius new master plan. Between Rachel being assaulted by Karofsky and Finn's failure to protect her, yesterday had been a wake up call for the blonde. Finn didn't deserve Rachel and Quinn had had it with playing nice, it wasn't her style and it wasn't getting her anywhere; as of now she was officially in competition for Rachel's heart and Finn was the enemy she would crush beneath her heel.

It wouldn't be hard to win, Quinn decided. She'd dated Finn, she had first hand knowledge of all of his many, many flaws and she had no problem using them against him. She'd befriend Rachel and be everything that Finn wasn't; charming, chivalrous, intelligent and supportive and Rachel would eventually fall for her and dump Finn on his stupid ass. Rachel would start pursuing Quinn and would be so in love with her by that point, she'd allow Quinn to control the terms of their relationship, the main one being that they'd have to keep it a secret.

Was her plan manipulative, deceptive and underhanded? Sure. But that's what Quinn, thanks to her years as Sue Sylvester's protégé , was best at and really it was all for Rachel's own good; the sooner she was free of that deadwood known as Finn Hudson the better.

She hadn't told Sam about it, she didn't think he'd approve, but Operation: Make Rachel Berry My Friend had officially become Operation: Make Rachel Berry Mine.

###

After Glee was finally over, Quinn waited until everyone else had filtered out the door before she approached Rachel, who she knew always stayed behind to do warm downs.

"Rachel," Quinn stepped up to the girl at the piano, trying to look bashful and nervous, which really didn't require much acting on her part.

"Oh, Quinn," Rachel spun around to face her, sounding surprised. Quinn didn't blame her, this was highly unusual. "Hello. I didn't get a chance to tell you how much I enjoyed your solo earlier."

"You did?"

"Yes, even though you were quite flat in the beginning, you recovered admirably," Rachel said without thinking, then cringed when she realized what she'd just said. "I'm sorry, I've been trying to stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Criticizing my fellow glee clubbers performances." Rachel knew that it was an aspect of her personality that deeply annoyed the people she was trying to befriend and really was doing her best to tamp down the urge to pick every one of their lackluster performances apart.

"It's fine." Quinn smiled at her. "I mean, how are we supposed to improve if we don't know where our weaknesses lie?"

"I think that we're pretty much the only ones who feel that way. I know it upsets the others when I point out their shortcomings."

Quinn shrugged, stepping closer but still keeping a respectful distance between them. She didn't want to scare Rachel off. "I guess I must have a thick skin from being on the Cheerios. We're six time national champions and all Coach Sylvester ever does is criticize us."

Rachel nodded understandingly. "Sometimes I feel like Mr. Schuester could learn a thing or two from Coach Sylvester when it comes to preparing for competition. Sectionals is only two weeks away and we don't even have our setlist selected yet. We should have been spending these last few weeks rehearsing for Sectionals, not wasting time on his assignments of the week," she huffed, clearly frustrated with their teacher's lack of leadership skills. To be honest she was impressed with Quinn's opinions on the topic, whenever she tried to talk to Finn about the issue he either got overly defensive of Mr. Schue or, when he didn't feel like arguing, his eyes just glazed over and he mentally checked out of the conversation until she'd reached another subject.

"I agree. I mean, Coach already has us practicing our routine for Nationals this year."

"But they're months away and you haven't even won Regionals yet."

"I know. But preparation is the key to winning."

Rachel grinned up at her. "I couldn't agree more," she said, still smiling until she realized that she was speaking to Quinn Fabray, who had obviously wanted something more from her than a conversation on Schuester's shortcomings. "I'm sorry, I got completely sidetracked, was their something you wanted, Quinn?"

"Yes, it kind of has to do with what we were talking about actually." Quinn looked away, injecting a little humility into her tone. "I know that I have the weakest voice in the club-"

"That's not true," Rachel interjected. "Mike is a far worse singer than you."

"Still, I feel like I'm letting the team down and, well, you're by far the most talented singer I know." _That's it, Quinn, stroke her ego._ "So I was wondering if you could give me some singing lessons or whatever," she mumbled the last part, like she was ashamed to even be asking. It was an Oscar winning performance.

As Quinn had expected, Rachel lit up like a Christmas tree. "Of course I'll help you, Quinn," she said, nearly beside herself with delight. Finally, her fellow glee clubbers were recognizing what she and her many years of vocal training had to offer. "And, you should know, that while your voice may lack the power, clarity and perfect pitch of mine, it is still extremely pleasant in it's own right. It's simply a matter of finding the right songs to do it justice."

Quinn couldn't stop herself from blushing at the unexpected compliment. "Thanks."

Rachel smiled benevolently. "Would you like to meet up here after school? We can start by going over the basics that Mr. Schuester has neglected to teach you."

Biting her lip to keep herself from grinning like an idiot at Rachel's suggestion, Quinn nodded. "Sounds great."

Step 2 was complete.


	8. Chapter 7

"I really must commend you on your dedication to the glee club, Quinn," Rachel said, shuffling through a pile of sheet music, searching for just the right song for Quinn. "I just wish that the others were as enthusiastic as you."

They'd been at it for over an hour now. Rachel had surprised Quinn by being a patient and competent instructor. First she'd shown her a few warm up exercises -including one that involved vibrating her tongue that had Quinn squeezing her thighs together and biting back a moan- and then they'd worked together to discover Quinn's true vocal range, which Rachel had deemed as limited but passable while certainly not as impressive as her own.

"Ah-ha!" Rachel exclaimed in victory, evidently finding the song she'd been looking for. "Here, this song should comfortably suit your range. You should practice it at home."

Quinn took the offered sheet music, smiling when she read the title and original artist. "Dusty Springfield?"

"You do know who she is, don't you?"

"Of course I do, she's my favorite singer," Quinn said defensively. So much for never revealing that particular secret to anyone.

"Really?" Rachel sounded skeptical. "I would've thought that your musical tastes would be more in sync with Brittany's and her love of that abominable Ke$ha."

Quinn smirked. "Oh, I guess I'm just full of surprises," she said, her voice just husky enough that it could be interpreted as flirting.

Rachel tilted her head to look at the girl standing across the piano from her. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't intrigued by the new side of Quinn that she'd been seeing lately. Quinn stared back, her hazel eyes intense and focused solely on Rachel, it was rather thrilling she had to admit. Rachel had always wondered what it would be like to have Quinn Fabray look at her like that.

The moment was broken by Rachel's phone vibrating on top of the piano. Sighing, Rachel snatched it up and checked the new text message that she'd just received. "It's from Finn," she announced, although she was sure that Quinn didn't care. "He forgot that he was supposed to be giving me a ride home today and is playing video games with Artie and Puck." She groaned and was about to text him back, saying that yes she most certainly did want him to come back to school and pick her up, when Quinn made a most unexpected offer.

"I can drive you home, if you want."

Rachel peered at her suspiciously. "Are you sure?"

Quinn shrugged nonchalantly. "I've tolerated your presence for over an hour now, another ten minutes won't kill me."

Rachel couldn't stop the hurt from flashing across her face. She'd thought that they'd been getting along quite well for two former bitter rivals, she'd almost managed to fool herself into believing that Quinn liked spending time with her.

_Idiot!_ Quinn mentally berated herself for being so cavalier in regards to Rachel's feelings when she was supposed to be trying to woo her. "That was a joke, I was joking. I'd be happy to drive you home, Rachel."

"No, it's alright." Rachel didn't want her charity. "I'll just tell Finn to-"

"Rachel," Quinn reached out and closed her hand over Rachel's phone to stop her from texting Finn back. "It doesn't make any sense to make him come back here and this way we can spend more time practicing. I really don't mind driving you."

"Alright," Rachel reluctantly accepted, forcing down her wounded pride. "Thank you." She erased what she'd managed to type out before Quinn had stopped her and sent a quick message telling Finn not to bother instead.

Quinn couldn't help but grin at this small victory.

###

"So, uh, I was wondering, since it's getting kind of late and all, do you maybe want to get some dinner...with me?" Quinn asked nervously, wiping her sweaty palms down the sides of her uniform and mentally chastising herself for sounding like an inarticulate teenage boy. She knew that she was jumping about five steps ahead in her plan but she was just so excited by how well it was going -minus that minor mishap an hour ago- and really, when God handed you a gift like Finn completely letting Rachel down, you shouldn't ignore it.

"It's just that my mom isn't going to be home and eating alone kind of sucks," she added, when Rachel failed to reply to her offer.

Rachel turned her head to look up at her unlikely companion as they walked side by side out of the school and made their way into the parking lot. "What about Sam?"

"He's busy tonight. His guild is going on a raid or something? I don't know, I tend to tune out whenever he starts talking about Dungeons and Warcraft," she said, rolling her eyes. "I just really think that it would be good for the team if we got along better."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "The team?"

Quinn nodded. "Yeah, I mean we're always talking about how the glee club's like a family but we don't act like it, not really. We just stay in our cliques and don't really make any efforts to branch out from them and I feel like, since we're both leaders, we should set an example for the others. Pave the way for inter-club harmony." _Pave the way for inter club harmony? Did I just say that?_ "I'll pay! You know, to make up for my completely unfunny joke earlier."

"That won't be necessary, Quinn." Rachel smiled at her, impressed with how much initiative she was taking. "But, yes, I will have dinner with you."

Quinn grinned and dashed forward to open her car's door for Rachel. She knew for a fact that Finn had never done that for her, he didn't even open doors for her when she was pregnant. Score 1 for Fabray!

Or maybe not, because Rachel was staring at her like she'd just given birth to an actual lizard baby right there on the asphalt. _I'm coming on too strong! Reign it in, Quinn!_ She awkwardly cleared her throat and moved to get in her side of the car, leaving the passenger door wide open for Rachel to get in and close for herself.

"I suppose that we'll be going to Breadstix," Rachel assumed as they both fastened their seat belts and Quinn started the car.

Quinn looked at her out of the corner of her eye. "Do you want to go to Breadstix?" It hadn't been part of her plan but if that's where Rachel wanted to go then they'd go to Breadstix.

Rachel shrugged. "That's where Finn always takes me and it's close by, so you won't have to go out of your way."

"Can you actually eat any of the food at Breadstix?" Rachel looked at her in surprise. "What? I'm not going to take you to dinner at a restaurant where you can't eat anything.

"That's unexpectedly considerate of you, Quinn. But it's fine, they have vegan meatballs that are bland but edible."

"Yeah, I hate to break it to you, but I have it on very good authority that the vegan meatballs actually have chicken in them." It was true, a few weeks ago her mother had -very, very- briefly dated one of the 'cooks' that worked there and, after having his tongue loosened by a copious amount of wine, Bradley had revealed all kinds of things about the unsavory goings on behind the scenes at Breadstix.

"What!" Rachel shrieked, outraged. "That is reprehensible, how dare they do that-"

"They only put them on the menu because _somebody_ kept sending the owners letters complaining that they didn't offer any vegan alternatives and threatening to go to the ACLU about it. But they decided that it wasn't cost effective to pay for vegan ingredients when only one person ever orders them, so they just use minced chicken and hope that you won't notice," Quinn explained.

Rachel, to put it plainly, was seething. "This is an absolute outrage, I can't believe it."

"Are you really that surprised? This _is_ Lima, it's not exactly accepting of alternative lifestyles." Although she probably didn't need to remind Rachel of that. "Anyway, I was thinking that we could go to that sushi place on 5th? I read that vegans like sushi...you do like sushi, don't you?"

"I love sushi, we get take out from there all the time," Rachel assured her, smiling at how considerate Quinn was being. Finn certainly never bothered to investigate alternative eating establishments. "And why were you reading about veganism anyway?"

Quinn blushed, thankful that Rachel couldn't see it in the darkness of the car. "I, uh, may have considered it when I was trying to lose weight over the summer," she lied. She couldn't exactly admit that she had been researching veganism in order to facilitate her wooing of Rachel. "But I decided it would be too much work."

Rachel nodded sympathetically. "Yes, it can be trying at times."

"So why do you do it? I mean, other than the whole not wanting the souls of dead animals on your conscience thing."

"Well..cutting out dairy has improved my voice and a vegan lifestyle can also have positive effects on one's skin," Rachel reluctantly revealed. Now Quinn would think that she only did it because she was selfish and it benefited her, not because she actually cared about the animals, like Finn did.

"Really?" Quinn said, sounding thoughtful. "Perhaps I should give it a little more consideration then."

"I imagine it would even more difficult for you," Rachel remarked. "Mercedes told me all about your addiction to bacon."

"I am not addicted to bacon!" Quinn growled. Yeah, she'd craved bacon while she'd been pregnant and sure, she may have threatened to cut Puck's balls off if he didn't sneak some into his mom's house for her that one time but there was no need for it to become the running joke amongst the glee club -namely Santana and Mercedes- that it had. "I just craved it while I was pregnant. I hate it, actually, I always have. Even the smell of it makes me feel sick, which sucks for me because my mom cures her own meats so our kitchen always reeks of it. It's completely disgusting and so unnecessary-"

Rachel watched in fascination as Quinn rambled away, she'd never known the older girl to talk so much. In fact, for as long as Rachel had known her Quinn had been fairly stoic. Even when she surrounded by her friends she rarely spoke unless it was to bark out insults or orders.

"And what are you smiling about?" Quinn asked, finally noticing that Rachel was looking at her oddly with a small smile playing on her lips.

"I'm sorry, it's just that I've never known you to be so loquacious, Quinn," Rachel said before automatically going to explain the long word. "That means-"

"I know what it means," Quinn said, cutting her off. "I'm on the honor roll, remember?"

Rachel blushed darkly. "Oh. I'm sorry, I guess I'm just so used to having to explain things to Finn."

"Well, I'm not Finn," Quinn reminded her, sounding a little more harsh than she'd intended._I actually have more than two functioning brain cells._ "You don't need to do that with me," she added in a more gentle tone.

Rachel bit her lip to keep herself from grinning too big. She loved Finn but honestly, sometimes -when she forgot to keep her vocabulary in check- trying to have an intelligent conversation with the boy was exhausting. "I'll keep that in mind."


	9. Chapter 8

Quinn's second attempt at chivalry went far more smoothly than the first. She made sure that she was positioned on Rachel's left as they approached the door to Happy Sushi, so when she pushed the door open for Rachel to enter it seemed only like the natural and polite thing to do.

"So what's good here?" she asked as they waited in line to place their order.

Rachel frowned up at her. "You've never had sushi before?" Why would Quinn take her for sushi if she didn't even know if she liked it?

"No but I've been wanting to try it...It's just that my family doesn't exactly like stepping out of our comfort zone. My parents idea of eating exotic food is having enchiladas once a month," Quinn said with a rueful smile. Truth was, Quinn was a little apprehensive about trying sushi for the first time. Her father had always told her if she ate fish that hadn't been properly cooked she'd get food poisoning and die. Thankfully, her father had turned out to be wrong about a lot of things. "You can just order for me, I'm sure that I'll like whatever you get."

Rachel grinned and Quinn knew she'd said exactly the right thing.

###

Quinn, as it turned out, very much liked sushi. Rachel had ordered California Rolls for Quinn, Vegetable Rolls for herself and a plate of tempura vegetables for them to share. All in all dinner was turning out to be a very interesting, pleasant experience.

"This is good," Quinn said, spearing a tempura mushroom with her fork and taking a bite. "I like it."

"I must admit, Quinn, this is a situation I had never pictured myself in," Rachel admitted, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin. "I expected you'd revert back to your old self once you got back in that uniform."

"Yeah well, that was the plan," Quinn sighed. She'd thought, perhaps a little naively, that all she needed to do was get back in the Cheerios uniform for everything to go back the way it was. That she'd be able to pretend that the last year had never happened.

"So what changed? If you don't mind me asking."

"Beth," Quinn surprised both Rachel and herself by saying. She hadn't spoken about her daughter, to anyone, since she'd left the hospital. Not even Puck. She took a sip of the green tea, that Rachel had insisted on ordering, to moisten her suddenly dry mouth.

"I try not to think about her but sometimes I can't help it," she confessed. "You know, I imagine what she'll be like when she's our age; what she'll look like, how she'll dress, how she'll act. And then I picture someone treating her like I used to treat you and it just feels...awful."

Quinn wasn't a fool, she had seen enough of Shelby Corcoran to know that she was pretty much the grown up version of the girl sitting across the table from her, and the odds that her daughter would grow up to develop an intense love of Barbra Streisand and musical theater were high and she knew exactly how unpopular that would make Beth with the rest of the kids.

Rachel was stunned by Quinn's admission, not only by the fact that Quinn actually did still think about her baby -something she'd been wondering about since the only time Quinn ever seemed to mention her pregnancy it was to complain about what it had done to her body and her social status- but that she'd actually admitted such sensitive information to _her_ of all people. "Do you...do you know who adopted her?" she asked tentatively.

Quinn averted her eyes and reached for a tempura carrot stick. "No," she lied, nibbling on her carrot. Well it wasn't exactly like she could come out and tell Rachel the truth -that she had given her baby to the mother that had so callously rejected her-, it would ruin everything. "I don't."

She cleared her throat loudly, clearly indicating that she wanted to move on from the subject. Unfortunately, Rachel wasn't exactly one to pick up such on subtle hints.

"Have you spoken about this with anyone else?" she pried. "Sam, Puck, your mother?"

"Nope."

Rachel frowned. "That's not very healthy, Quinn. But I'm extremely flattered that you've chosen me to confide in, although I'm a unsure of why. I thought you hated me."

"I don't," Quinn denied, thankful for the change in subject and for the opportunity to apologize for her past actions without it seeming odd. "I never hated you, Rachel. Actually, I envied you." At least that was partly true.

Rachel looked at her with wide, incredulous eyes. "You envied _me_? Why?" Quinn was smart, powerful and easily the most beautiful girl in the whole school. What could she possibly have for Quinn to be jealous of?

"Because you've always known exactly who you are, while the rest of us are still trying to figure ourselves out. And you never apologized for it, no matter how badly you were treated for just being yourself, you never changed to try and fit in. I admired that, I wish I could be that brave." Quinn shyly looked away, hoping that she wasn't blushing as hard as it felt like she was. Sharing her feelings was hard but she knew it had to be done. "I'm sorry I was so awful to you, Rachel. I was taking all my insecurities out on you and that wasn't fair. I just want you to know that I'm not going to do that anymore, I promise."

The blinding smile she got in response from Rachel was totally worth all the discomfort of opening up.

"Thank you, Quinn. So does that mean you've figured yourself out now?"

Quinn smirked, that was such a loaded question and Rachel didn't even know it. "Not quite yet, but I think I'm getting there." _Okay, I think that's enough of the heavy conversation for now,_ she thought. She looked down at her empty plate. "So do they do dessert here or what?"

###

The next morning even a super brutal early morning Cheerios practice couldn't wipe the smile off Quinn's face.

"Okay, seriously, did Sylvester slip some happy pills into your Gatorade or something?" Sam asked, smothering a yawn with his hand. He didn't understand how Quinn could be so chipper at this hour in the morning, it was unnatural, especially when he felt like he'd been hit by a truck.

With the finals only a few weeks away, Coach Beiste had started making every early morning practice session mandatory for the football team and she worked them hard, almost to the brink of exhaustion. Not that Sam really had room to complain, The Panther got results. The fact that Beiste had managed to turn the Titans around from a team that had only won one game last season into a team that was now favorite to take out the conference championship was pretty incredible.

"What?" Quinn chirped as they meandered through the mostly deserted halls of McKinley together. Most of the other students wouldn't be arriving for at least another twenty minutes. "I'm not just allowed to be happy?"

"No. Not at this hour of the morning."

Quinn rolled her eyes but the smile never left her face. "I went on a date with Rachel last night."

"Whoa! Why didn't you tell me about this last night?"

"I was going to but you wouldn't shut up about your 'awesome loot drop' long enough for me to get a word in."

"Oh." Sam smiled sheepishly. In his defence, he had picked up some pretty sweet armor for his Paladin. "But wait, did she know it was a date? Because you know it's not a date unless the other person knows that it's a date, right?"

"Okay, so maybe it wasn't an official date," Quinn admitted. "But we had dinner together, which I paid for, and we talked and then I drove her home and walked her to her door, which I think actually might have creeped her out a little bit."

Sam just smiled while Quinn spoke. He was happy for her, it was nice -and maybe a little odd- to see her genuinely excited for once, she was usually so stoic.

"Anyway," she continued. "I'm starting to think that you were right when you said it's different for girls than it is for guys. I mean, nobody even cared that we were having dinner together." The other diners hadn't even given them a second glance when Rachel had started rubbing Quinn's back after an unfortunate incident with some wasabi.

It was then that Quinn realized that she was lucky that they were both girls. Girls could hug and hold hands and be generally affectionate with each other and still have it be considered by those around them as totally normal heterosexual BFF behavior. Meanwhile, if two guys so much as held hands in public they'd instantly be labeled as capital-G gays by everyone around them.

Of course with Rachel being...well, Rachel and Quinn being Quinn Fabray, it would be bound to raise a few eyebrows if they suddenly started fawning over each other but Quinn doubted that anyone would ever suspect the real truth.

"See," Sam said, nudging her with his elbow. "I told you." He knew that he was probably violating several different sections of the Bro Code by encouraging Quinn to go after his best friend's girl but he didn't really care. Finn didn't even seem to like Rachel that much, he was always complaining about her -she's too much of a controlist, she won't let me touch her boobs, she's always paranoid I'm going to dump her for a more popular, less annoying girl, she's too short and it hurts my back to kiss her, she's always baking banana bread for me and the carbs are making me fat.- If you asked Sam, Finn would be better off single and Quinn would be happier with Rachel.

"I know, I just...I'm starting to think I can actually do this. I mean, I'm not going to be throwing pride parades or anything but I think I could date Rachel...you know, if she'll let me."

Sam slung his arm around Quinn's shoulders and squeezed her in a side hug. "I'm so proud of you, Quinn."

Quinn looked away, feeling tears stinging at her eyes that she stubbornly refused to shed. She wasn't usually such a crybaby -at least, not when she wasn't pregnant- but it had been so long since somebody had said those words to her and actually meant them.

"Thanks. I know it's not really that big of a deal but I-Oh my God!" she gasped as they rounded the corner and she was confronted with one of the most shocking things she'd ever seen.

Karofsky and Azimio were taking turns brutally kicking a boy in a Cheerio's uniform, who was curled in the fetal position on the floor against a bank of lockers and using his arms to try and protect his face from their viciously stamping feet.

"Kurt."


	10. Chapter 9

"Go get help," Quinn vaguely registered Sam telling her, before he took off running towards the fray.

Lowering his shoulder, Sam charged into Azimio at full speed and, as he bounced off the larger boy's back, pain shot through his shoulder and he remembered exactly why he was a quarterback and didn't play offensive tackle.

No sooner than he had gotten his balance after rebounding off Azimio's back, Sam once again found himself losing his footing as pain engulfed the entire left side of his face.

The sight of Azimio's fist colliding with Sam's face, knocking him clear off his feet, was enough to snap Quinn out of her stupor. She took off running, heading for the teacher's lounge, she sprinted past Holly Holiday -who was roaming the halls dressed as a pirate- and didn't even bother stopping, even in her panicked state Quinn knew the sub would be useless in a situation like this.

Skidding into the teacher's lounge, Quinn had never been so relieved to see Mr. Schuester in her life. Fuelled by pure adrenaline, Quinn had no idea what she was saying, she couldn't even hear herself speak over the sound of the blood rushing through her ears, but it must've got the point across because Schue, Coach Bieste and Mrs. Pillsbury all urgently jumped up from the table they'd been sharing and rushed down the hall behind Quinn as she led them back to the scene of the crime. She just hoped that they weren't too late.

###

"They won't get away with this! I've already got my fathers on standby to call the ALCU on Kurt's behalf!" Rachel furiously ranted, pacing the floor at the front of the choir room, so angry that she was very nearly in tears.

Once the news of Kurt's attack spread, the gleeks all decided to skip their first period classes and gather together in their choir room, which had become like a second home to many of them, to wait for news. They were upset and on edge and Rachel was grating on Mercedes' last damn nerve.

"Rachel, just shut up! You and Kurt aren't even friends, so stop trying to make this about you!"

Quinn wanted to stand up and yell at Mercedes that Rachel had had the balls to stand up for Kurt when nobody else did but she kept quiet, busying her still shaking hands with pressing an ice pack to the already impressive bruise that was blossoming from Sam's left eye socket and had already turned almost half of the side of his face a sickening shade of purple.

She didn't understand why this was affecting her so badly, it wasn't like she didn't see more graphic violence almost everyday on television...but these were people she knew, Kurt was her friend and Karofsky and his family attended her church, she knew that the boy was cruel but she'd never imagined that someone she knew could be capable of such brutality.

Seeing Kurt huddled on the floor, terrified, looking so small and fragile while the two larger boys drove their feet into him, again and again, had been like one big, reality filled bitchslap to Quinn face. It was a stark, shocking reminder of where they lived and exactly why her and Rachel could never happen. Sure, it may have been easier for them to hide with them both being girls, but all it would take was one wrong person, just one, to figure out the truth and their lives as they knew them would be effectively ruined. She couldn't put herself at risk like that, she couldn't put _Rachel _at risk like that. Quinn's bubble had well and truly been burst.

A sudden commotion made her look up to see that Mr. Schuester had entered the room, looking stressed beyond the telling of it, and had immediately been set upon by nine teenagers all desperate for news on their injured teammate.

"Guys, settle down!" The teacher had to raise his voice to be heard above the din.

They all immediately quieted down to hear what he had to say.

"Kurt's going to be alright," he informed them with no small amount of relief. "He's got a lot of bumps and bruises on top of a mild concussion and badly sprained wrist but he's going to be okay."

"And what about the punks that did it?" Puck growled, he was absolutely seething and the only thing keeping him from going all Death Star on Karofsky and Azimio's asses was the threat of being sent back to juvie.

"Azmio Adams has been expelled and Dave Karofsky's been suspended for six weeks."

"Suspended?" Rachel shrieked in outrage. "He should be in jail!"

"Why is Karofsky getting off with a suspension when Azimio's getting expelled?" Quinn had to ask.

"Because Azimio hit Sam."

_Of course,_ Quinn thought. _Beating up the resident homo is no big deal but lay a hand on the straight, white Quarterback and you're outta here._

"That's not fair," Sam protested.

"I agree, Sam," Schue said, rubbing at his wrinkled forehead. "Miss Pillsbury is in Figgins' office right now, trying to talk some sense into him."

"What about the Po-po, what are they going to do about it?" questioned Artie.

"Nothing yet. It's being left up to Kurt to decide if he wants to press charges."

"This is bull!" Puck suddenly shouted, springing up from his chair. "I got sent to juvie for trying to steal an ATM, I didn't even hurt anybody, but those two are just going to get away with assault?"

"It wasn't just assault," Rachel quietly corrected him. "It was a hate crime."

It was a sobering moment for them all.

"There's also another reason that Karofsky's getting off so lightly," Schue reluctantly revealed. Better his kids hear from him now than later through the grapevine. "He's claiming that Kurt forced an unwanted kiss on him."

"Oh hell no!" Mercedes loudly objected. "There is no way that my man Kurt would ever touch that jerk."

Schue nodded in agreement. "I know, Mercedes," he said placatingly. "But that's what Karofsky is saying provoked the attack. Look, I need to get back to Figgins office and try to get this mess sorted out. You guys can stay here until the end of the period but then you have to go to class, okay?"

The glee clubbers muttered their agreements, allowing him to maintain his delusion that he actually had control over them. Satisfied that they were going to do as they were told, Schue nodded and took his leave.

"I can't believe this has happened," Tina said, as soon as the door had closed behind their teacher. "I mean, I knew it was bad but I never thought it would come to this."

"Well I'm just glad that Sam and Quinn were there to put a stop to it before those two gorillas could do any permanent damage," said Mercedes.

"Yeah, that was really brave of you, Sam," Brittany added from her position in Artie's lap. Santana's jaw clenched as she looked away.

"Why are you all acting so surprised?" Finn yelled, startling them all. He'd been quiet since he'd heard the news about Kurt, from Puck of all people, he'd silently stewed in his volatile emotions until now he'd finally snapped. "I told Kurt if he kept acting the way that he does that something like this was going to happen, I warned him but he didn't listen! He brought it on himself by-" If Kurt was stupid enough to kiss Karofsky then Finn couldn't help but feel like he deserved everything he got. It's not like he liked feeling this way but having been on the receiving end of Kurt's intense 'affections', -now Finn was especially glad that Kurt didn't try to mouth rape him and felt kind of justified in his fear that he would- he could totally understand Karofsky's reaction. If a guy tried to kiss him like that he probably would've started throwing punches too.

"You'd best not finish that sentence, Finn Hudson," Mercedes threatened. "Because I don't care how much of a giant you are I will take you to the carpet."

Upset and confused, Finn couldn't stop himself. "Well, it's true! He wouldn't have been bashed if he wasn't so fa-" He managed to catch himself before the slur slipped out but it was too late, the damage was done, everyone knew exactly what he'd been about to say.

"Faggy?" Rachel finished for him. "Isn't that what you were about to say? That Kurt deserved to be bullied, to be beaten, for just being himself. For refusing to change himself just to make the small-minded idiots in this school feel more comfortable?"

By now Rachel had come to stand toe to toe with Finn and was practically vibrating with rage as she poked her boyfriend in the chest. Even as she was mentally retreating back into the closet, Quinn couldn't help thinking it was kind of the hottest thing she'd ever seen.

"That's not what I meant," Finn weakly defended himself, even he was smart enough to know that he'd majorly stepped in it.

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "Isn't it? Well, what about me, Finn, do I deserve to be treated the way I am at this school? Do you think that I bring it on myself?"

Finn got that vapid look on his face that he always did right before he said something incredibly dumb. "Well, maybe if you dressed a little better and weren't so annoying-"

He was cut off by Rachel's open palm colliding with his cheek.

"I've never been so disappointed in you, Finn," she hissed, tears streaming unabashedly down her face. Rachel turned sharply on her heel and executed the perfect diva storm out, that, for once, the rest of the group thought was completely justified.

Hand pressed to his stinging cheek, Finn turned helplessly back to his friends for support, only to find every single one of them glaring at him.

"You totally deserved that," Brittany said, very matter of factly.

"Seriously," Santana agreed. "For once I'm actually on Team Rachel..." She shuddered in disgust at the thought. "Gross."

While Finn went on to try and plead his case to the others, Sam leaned into Quinn, who was looking longingly at the door Rachel had just stormed out of. "Do you want to go after her?" he whispered, preparing to take the ice pack from her so she could go and comfort her woman.

Quinn just turned to look at him with the saddest eyes Sam had ever seen. "I can't. I can't do any of it."


	11. Chapter 10

"I can't believe that Finn was such an ass about Kurt," Quinn spat out. She'd been fuming about it all day.

Instead of going to Glee practice, which was especially important since it was one of their last chances to rehearse before the wedding on Sunday, all the gleeks had piled into their cars as soon as the final bell rang so they could go and visit Kurt who was being kept in the hospital overnight for observation.

"I can," said Sam.

Quinn's eyes shifted from the road to the boy in her passenger seat. "Really?"

"Yeah, look I'm not saying that he's secretly some hardcore bigot or something," Sam said, nervously running a hand through his hair, doubting whether it was a good idea to bring this up. "But when he talked me out of singing a duet with Kurt...he came across as kind of homophobic."

"I guess I'm not that surprised, he was always a little weird about Kurt." Yet another reason he was all wrong for Rachel, if he wasn't comfortable with gay people then how would he ever cope with having two fathers-in-law?

"So what the hell did you mean that you can't do any of it?" Sam finally asked. He'd held off until now, hoping that it was just the shock talking, that once Quinn got over it she'd realize how silly she was being.

"I meant exactly what I said," Quinn answered, clenching her jaw. She did not want to talk about this, especially not with Sam and all of his bright-eyed optimism, it was his fault that she was in this position in the first place. "I was crazy for thinking I could actually make it work. What happened to Kurt just...snapped me out of my temporary insanity and put everything into perspective for me."

Sam frowned, disappointed. Quinn had been so happy that morning when she'd thought that there was a chance for her and Rachel. She'd been more vibrant and animated than he'd ever seen her but now that Quinn was gone, buried under thick sheets of ice, and the old stoic, sullen, _numb_Quinn was back in the driver's seat. "So what are you planning on doing now?"

"I'll just keep doing what I was before I lost my mind; I'm going to captain the Cheerios to a seventh consecutive National championship, I'm going to keep getting good grades and ignoring Rachel and go to church to pray that I'll be able to get out of this hick town the second I graduate."

"Q," Sam sighed and decided to try and talk some sense into the distraught girl. "You can't just go back to ignoring Rachel after last night, she probably thinks that you guys are friends now. It wouldn't be fair to her."

She knew that he was right. Rachel had been so excited by the end of the night at the prospect of having Quinn as her new best friend, which was understandable since Rachel didn't exactly have people lining up to be friends with her, it would probably crush her if Quinn reverted back her previous behavior and the poor girl had already been let down by far too many people in her young life and Quinn refused to join a list that had Finn Hudson, Will Schuester _and_Jesse St. James on it.

"Fine, I'll be her friend but that's all I'm _ever_going to be."

Sam nodded acceptingly, barely able to manage to hide his smug smile. _We'll see how long that lasts for._ "If you say so."

###

With the entire Glee club squeezed into his hospital room, Kurt looked even smaller and frailer in his hospital bed. Technically, he was only supposed to have three visitors at a time but Puck had flirted with the head nurse until she agreed to make an exception just for them.

The atmosphere was decidedly uncomfortable, nobody knew what to say or do or how to act around a friend who'd just been gay bashed.

"Why'd they do it, Kurt?" Mercedes finally asked the question that was on all of their minds.

Kurt looked conflicted. He didn't necessarily want to be the one to out Karofsky but he no longer felt the need to protect the closeted jock's secret any longer. "A few weeks ago," he began, his voice hoarse from crying. "Karofsky kissed me." A collective gasp was heard and Kurt paused for a moment to let his friends take that in. "And he threatened to kill me if I told anybody. I guess after what Rachel said to him the other day he figured that I'd told and decided to make good on his threat."

"So it's all Rachel's fault," Mercedes said, lashing out at the easiest target. Rachel seemed to fold in on herself under the accusation, making herself even smaller that she already was.

Quinn had been about to step in and defend her _friend_but she was beaten to the punch by a most unexpected source.

"Oh, shut it, Precious," Santana drawled, rolling her eyes. "The Hobbit couldn't have known. The only person who's to blame for this mess is that self-loathing closet case Karofsky."

Kurt nodded the best he could in agreement. "It's not your fault, Rachel. I know that you were only trying to protect me," he said, smiling at her.

"Well, you're not going to have to worry about it when you come back to school," Puck spoke for the first time since entering the hospital room. "We'll all have your back, we can form a perimeter around you like the Secret Service. If anyone tries to touch you again, we'll smash 'em," he said, driving his fist into his palm.

The boys, Santana and Rachel all nodded in agreement.

"I appreciate the gesture but I won't be coming back to school. At least not to McKinley," Kurt revealed. "My father's decided that after the wedding I'm going to be transferring to Dalton Academy. I'm sorry, I know that I'm letting you down just before Sectionals but if Karofsky's still going to be at that school then I can't be."

"It's alright, Kurt," Rachel quietly assured him. "We all understand that your safety has to come first."

While the rest of them all murmured their agreements, Quinn stared at Rachel trying to figure out where this defeated acceptance was coming from. Rachel should've been fighting to get Kurt to stay, at least until after Sectionals. Karofsky would still be on suspension until after Christmas, so it wouldn't be like Kurt would be in danger. Whatever, it's not like she cared...Okay, so that was a lie, she cared. In a friendly way. Totally platonic concern, that's all it was.

Yep, she was so screwed.

###

They all stayed for a while, awkwardly chatting about inconsequential things and ignoring the giant pink elephant in the room, before they started dispersing in small groups.

Sam, Quinn and Puck had surprisingly been some of the last to leave, with only Mercedes and Finn staying behind with Kurt, to say it had been an awkward elevator ride down to the ground floor would be an understatement.

They'd been walking past the cafeteria when Quinn spotted Rachel sitting alone at one of the tables, looking deep in thought. She stopped in her tracks, inadvertently causing Sam to run into her back.

"I thought she left with Artie and Brittany."

Sam followed her line of sight. "Do you want to go talk to her?"

Quinn frowned. "I need to drive you home."

"I can get a ride with Puck," Sam said, waving off her concern. "You should go talk to her, she looks like she could use a _friend_."

Quinn smiled at his teasing and hugged him tightly. "Thanks, Sam," she whispered into his broad chest. "You're the best lesbro a girl could have." She knew what the word meant now, she'd looked it up.

"Damn straight."

###

"I thought that Artie's dad was going to drive you home," Quinn said, sliding into the seat across from the downcast singer.

Rachel started a little at the sudden interruption in her thoughts. "Oh, I just wanted to speak with Kurt in private, so I'm waiting until Finn and Mercedes leave."

"I hope you're not letting what Mercedes said get to you. None of this is your fault."

"It's nice of you to say that, Quinn-"

"I didn't say it to be nice, I said it because it's true."

Rachel shook her head and looked down at her coffee cup. "When I was five," she began in a voice so soft Quinn actually had to strain her ears to hear it. "I answered the phone for the first time, I knew that I wasn't supposed to but my dads were down in the basement and I was just so excited to be doing something so grown up. On the other end of the line was a man who said that my fathers were fags and that they were going to burn in hell. I was too young to understand what it meant but I knew it was bad. I knew it must've had something to do with the reason people threw rocks through our windows and spray painted bad words on our garage."

Quinn couldn't help but gape dumbfoundedly at Rachel -She imagined that she was probably doing a pretty good impression of Finn at that moment.- before pulling herself together enough to tentatively reach across the table until her fingertips brushed against the back of Rachel's clasped hands. "I had no idea it was that bad."

Rachel smiled bitterly and accepted Quinn's comforting gesture, allowing her to take her hand. "It's not anymore, it was the worst when I was little...there were a lot of people in this town who believed that two men shouldn't have a child." She sighed, remembering how hard her fathers had tried to pretend for her that nothing was wrong. "The point is, while I know it's not exactly the same, I feel like I can relate the most to what Kurt's going through. And I should've known better than to antagonize Karofsky like I did."

Quinn was at a loss. "I'm sorry."

Rachel raised her head to look at Quinn strangely as she tried to figure out what exactly it was she was apologizing for. Quinn would've been too young to remember her father's efforts to have the Berrys run out of town and despite being brought up in what surely was an extremely homophobic environment, Quinn, even at her most vicious, had never said a bad word about her fathers. "It's not your fault." She looked back down at her untouched coffee. "Do you want this?"

Quinn eyed the polystyrene cup suspiciously. "What's wrong with it?"

"I was so distracted that I put milk in it instead of non-dairy creamer. I can't drink it but I don't want it to go to waste."

"Sure, I'll take it." Quinn reluctantly released Rachel's incredibly soft and not at all mannish hand, to take the coffee from her and took a sip. "It's good," she lied, fighting the urge to spit the weak, lukewarm liquid out. It was vile.

"Considering it's coffee from a hospital cafeteria, I think that calling it good is a gross exaggeration."

Quinn chuckled and took another mouthful, wanting to finish the drink before it got any colder. "How are you getting home?" she asked, after forcing herself to swallow.

"I was going to call one of my dads."

"I can drive you," Quinn offered. "I don't mind waiting."

Rachel was torn, she did unexpectedly enjoy Quinn's company a great deal but she didn't want to inconvenience her. "I'll probably be quite a while..."

"That's fine, I really don't have anywhere else to be." As long as she was home before Judy went to bed, her mother didn't much care about what her daughter did or where she was.

###

"Here you are, home sweet home," Quinn said cheerfully as they pulled up outside the Berry's house. Was she overcompensating? Maybe. But she had waited patiently outside Kurt's room while Rachel spent over an hour in there talking to him and Rachel had barely said a word to her since. She didn't understand what had happened, they'd been cordially chatting away -avoiding the heavy topics like Finn and Kurt and sticking to lighter fare like how Quinn's singing was coming along- only moments before Rachel had gone in to talk to Kurt but the second Rachel exited the hospital room Quinn could tell that she had her guards up.

Rachel took off her seatbelt but didn't make any other moves to exit the car. Instead she turned in her seat until she was facing Quinn. "Why are you doing this?"

"You needed a ride home, I have a car," Quinn said slowly, playing dumb.

"You know what I'm talking about, Quinn," Rachel huffed. "Why are you being so nice to me?" It had to be a trick, some awful trick that the Cheerio's had cooked up to humiliate her.

"I told you-"

"I don't believe you." It was just too good to be true. She'd realized that when she'd been telling Kurt about how surprisingly lovely Quinn had been with her at dinner the night before and Kurt agreed that this was highly unusual behavior for Quinn. She was never nice unless there was something in it for her.

"I just really want to be your friend, okay?"

Rachel couldn't help but laugh at the preposterous idea. "My friend? Why would you possibly want that? Why now?"

"Look, I know that you've offered me friendship in the past and I turned you down but I wasn't ready then. This...it's hard for me, okay? I-I don't have any friends. Well, I have Sam but he doesn't really count, but other than him I don't have any friends, not real ones. I never have."

Rachel's brow furrowed and she looked adorably confused. "But you're the captain of the Cheerios-"

"Yeah and they all hate me, except maybe Brittany and Becky but I'm pretty sure they don't hate anyone. I'm popular because I'm feared, Rachel, not because I'm liked."

"So are you saying that it's lonely at the top?"

"Almost as lonely as it is at the bottom."

"No, I think it would be worse," Rachel said after a long moment of consideration. "To be surrounded by people who you know are only pretending to like you and still feeling totally alone."

"Well, at least I have Sam now...and I'd really like to have you." _Oh God, I'd like to have you._ "I think that you'd be a great friend, given the chance, Rachel. I feel like I can really talk to you. I mean, I've never opened up to anybody the way that I have with you." _That's it, appeal to her ego, make her feel special._

Rachel looked away, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "You'll understand if I'm reluctant to trust you, Quinn. After the last year, everything with Jesse and Shelby." _And Finn._

"No, I get it, you've been hurt. But I'm not like them, I just hope that I can prove that to you."

"So do I."


	12. Chapter 11

"You'd better be careful, Quinn," Sam warned her once she'd finished filling him in on the new developments.

"Why?"

"Well, what if you change your mind about not wanting to be with her? You don't want to end up stuck in the friend zone," he said, balancing his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he placed another slice of turkey on his food scales.

"What's the friend zone?"

Sam laughed so hard that he nearly dropped his phone. "Are you serious? I went to an all boys school and I still know more about girls than you do! How is that even possible?"

"Sam," Quinn whined. It wasn't fair of him to make fun of her, it's not like she had any experience in the area. She'd always been the pursued, never the pursuer.

"A tricky and dangerous place the friend zone is," Sam began in a bad Yoda impression. "And once you're in it, it's practically impossible for the girl you're interested in to see you as anything other than a friend, thus eliminating the possibility of any future romantic relationship with her," he explained, feeling like he was Jedi Master teaching the ways if the Force to his young padawan.

"But I guess that's something you don't have to worry about, since you've decided that all you want to be is Rachel's friend anyway," he teasingly added.

"It'd still be nice to keep my options open," Quinn grumbled, not ready to admit that she was already on the verge of backflipping on her decision again. "So, just out of curiosity, how would one know if they're in the friend zone?"

"Well, if she ever refers to you as being like a brother, or in your case like a sister, I guess, then you know that you're in trouble," he began, eager to impart his wisdom on his young apprentice. "Also..."

#

The music was pumping, the champagne was flowing, love was in the air and Quinn Fabray was miserable.

She sat slouched at her assigned table, nursing a glass of champagne, glaring daggers at the happy couple out on the dance floor.

She just didn't get it. Finn had gotten up, given a speech -by her count now, his mother, Mr. Schuester and Kurt had all taught Finn to be a man. If you asked Quinn they must've done a pretty shitty job of it because he was the most immature, childish 'man' she had ever met.- and sang a song and now apparently all was forgiven. He was restored to his golden pedestal. It was disgusting.

"You're being a bit obvious, don't you think?" Sam nudged her.

"I don't care." She really didn't. She'd watched Finn and Rachel treat each other like crap -Finn moreso than Rachel- for far too long. Even if she couldn't let herself be with Rachel, she couldn't allow their toxic relationship to continue. She had to break them up, for Rachel's sake if nothing else. She knew it was bad but sometimes you had to be ruthless to ensure that beautiful things keep growing and Rachel was the most beautiful thing Quinn had ever seen.

And it wasn't like she didn't at least feel guilty about it. Finn was a good gu...well, he wasn't a bad guy, he was just too stupid and self-centred to realize that he shouldn't do things like tell his pregnant girlfriend that he wished she was more like the girl she knew he was cheating on her with -that still stung when Quinn thought about it-, which meant that he just wasn't equipped to handle a high maintenance girl like Rachel...or even a low maintenance girl like Brittany. Actually he just wasn't equipped to deal with girls at all.

"You're a good person, Sam," she said suddenly, turning to him.

Sam's big lips stretched into a confused grin. "So are you."

Quinn tried to smile but couldn't quite get there. He was so naïve. "Well, to do what needs to be done, I'm going to have to be significantly less of a good person." She looked back to Rachel and Finn and her lips twisted into a snarl as Finn stepped on Rachel's foot and they both burst into laughter. What the hell were they laughing about? Rachel had delicate, dainty feet, them being crushed under Finn's giant clown shoes was no laughing matter. "And I don't want to drag you down with me."

"Do you really think I'm going to let you do this alone?" he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "If you're in, I'm in."

"You sure?" she had to ask.

"I'm sure. I gave you my word, there's no going back on that."

Quinn was going to argue but one look at Sam's determined face put a stop to that. She had a feeling that he was still going to try to help her even if she forbid him. "Then let's get to work." She stood and held out her hand. "Dance with me."

#

They didn't make a direct beeline for Finn and Rachel, rather they danced together on the other side of the dance floor until the other couple naturally drifted closer to them. Then Quinn discretely lead Sam over to them, until they were dancing side by side, and made her move.

Pretending to trip over Sam's foot, Quinn had to struggle to regain her balance as she 'stumbled'. It was just too bad that it involved stamping on Finn's foot, driving the heel of her shoe down with extra force.

"Oh my god!" Quinn gasped as Finn yelped and started hopping on the spot, clutching his injured foot. "Finn, I am so sorry, I tripped."

"'S okay," Finn hissed through his teeth, looking like he was about to cry.

"Well we can't afford to have our leading man crippled right before Sectionals, you really need to put some ice on that. Sam, you should help him," Quinn ordered with a fake smile before Rachel could get a word in.

"Huh?" Sam looked confused for a moment before catching on to Quinn's plan. "Oh! Yeah, sure. Come on, big guy," he said, looping an arm around Finn's waist as the overgrown teen leaned on him for support as he limped off the dance floor.

Seeing that Rachel was about to try to follow, Quinn stepped in front of her. "So how come you haven't sung yet? You do know that it's an open mic, right?"

Effectively distracted from her boyfriend's plight, Rachel nodded, suddenly looking bashful. "I didn't want to overshadow Finn at his mother's wedding."

Quinn didn't quite know how to react to that. Rachel not wanting to sing because it might put a dent in Finn's ego? Absurd. That just wouldn't do at all. "I'm sure he won't mind. It's better than Mr. Schue hogging the mic all night, now that he's got a few drinks in him I'm afraid that he could start rapping at any moment. You know, you should do a duet with Kurt, with him transferring to Dalton this might be last chance to sing with him for a while," she suggested, smirking in satisfaction as Rachel lit up like a Christmas tree at the idea.

"You're absolutely right, Quinn. I need to find Kurt," Rachel said distractedly, her brain already flooding with possible song selections, she scurried off without so much as a thank you.

#

"You know that you're never going to get a another chance to dance with her tonight, right?" Sam said when he returned to their table.

By now, Kurt and Rachel had well and truly commandeered the stage. After a ten minute squabble about who got to sing Whitney's part -which Kurt had ultimately won-, they'd sung Endless Love and were currently in the middle of belting out Evergreen, which had to be pretty much the cheesiest song Quinn had ever heard -not that she'd ever say that to Rachel, Quinn was pretty sure that slandering anything Barbra has ever done would be the ultimate dealbreaker for her-.

"I know," Quinn said, tearing her eyes away from the stage to look at Finn, who was pouting pathetically while holding a plastic bag filled with ice to his injured foot. She couldn't help but smirk. "But now neither will he."

_It's game on, Hudson, and I play to win._


	13. Chapter 12

Sectionals were a week away and they hadn't even started rehearsals, hell they didn't even have a set list. It was utterly ridiculous in Quinn's opinion. She knew that Mr Schue thought that they were at their best when they were loose and spontaneous but how could he know? When had they ever performed any other way? If Schuester had any brains in that curly haired head of his, he'd just hand the reins of the Glee Club over to Rachel and call it a day.

And speaking of the Devil, look who just turned up for Glee, five minutes late as usual. Not expecting anything of relevance to come out of the Spanish teachers mouth, Quinn turned her attention back to the half-finished sketch of Rachel in her notebook.

Rachel was up out of her seat before Schuester could even open his mouth. "Mr. Schuester, I have an announcement. I have selected the perfect moving ballad for Finn and I to sing to launch our performance at Sectionals."

"Me first," Schue said, holding up a finger. "Two things, first our competition at Sectionals are your classic stool choirs. Great voices but they don't move. If we're going to beat them, we need to do what they can't. Dance. Which is why I've decided to feature Brittany and Mike Chang's sweet moves in our performance."

_I wonder if he even remembers Brittany's last name,_Quinn idly wondered while the others celebrated the news.

"Wait, they're going to dance in front of me while I sing my solo?" Rachel asked, sounding disgruntled and confused.

"You're not getting a solo for this competition, Rachel."

Quinn's head snapped up in alarm. Had he completely lost his mind?

"Finally!" Mercedes exclaimed joyfully. "So what song do I get to sing?"

Schuester rubbed his sweaty palms down the sides of his jeans. He knew this decision would not go over well. But it had to be done, if Emma thought it was the right thing to do...She was a guidance counselor and she'd offered her guidance, he'd be a fool to ignore it, really. "I was thinking that the winners of our duets competition would take the leads."

Quinn's face fell. _ Oh no. Schuester, you son of a bitch! You're going to ruin everything!_

"Ken and Barbie," Rachel sneered in disbelief. Quinn tried not to take it to heart. "Wait, are you trying to throw this?"

Quinn totally agreed with her sentiments. She was well aware her voice was not competition caliber, they'd never win. "I really don't think this is a good idea," she tried to protest but was ignored.

"Okay, listen, I have talked the talk about everyone in here feeling special for over a year now but frankly I haven't walked the walk."

_And he picks **now** to try and change that?_Quinn's fingers clenched around her pen, pretending it was Schuester's neck.

"I mean we have got a lot of talent here and I'm going to highlight it."

_Why the hell did he pick me? If he wanted to highlight overlooked talent why didn't he give the duet to Tina and Artie? This is a complete disaster._

"Do something," Rachel hissed, elbowing Finn into action.

"Look, I'm all for pumping up the team, making everyone feel special but that's for practice. You don't take the star quarterback out before the big game."

_I think that must be the smartest thing Finn has ever said._ Quinn thought while Rachel emphatically agreed with her boyfriend. _Does this mean that Finn is smarter than Mr. Schuester? Maybe there is hope for him after all._

"Easy to say when you're the star quarterback," said Tina.

"This isn't just about me, this is about the team."

"You are such a hypocrite," Santana jeered at him.

"Like you even know what that means," Rachel snapped right back. Quinn had to smile, a year ago Rachel wouldn't have dared to stand up to Santana like that.

"It means that your boyfriend is full of crap, Hobbit."

Rachel, already pissed about losing the duet, stood up and whirled around. "You know what, ever since the wedding you've been up my butt and I'm sick of it!"

"Come on, Rachel, she's not worth," Finn muttered, trying to get his girlfriend to sit down in case she ended up provoking Santana into saying something they'd all regret.

"Oh really? Cause that's not what you thought last year in that hotel room. That's right, Yentl, your sweetheart? He's been lying to you, cause he and I totally got it on last year."

Way to go, Finn.

Santana smirked in triumph, Rachel was wounded and Finn looked like he just realized that he really needed to go to the bathroom.

Quinn knew it was awful and it probably made her a terrible person but she could barely contain her glee. She had to look away in case Rachel saw the triumphant smirk that was threatening to spread across her lips. This was it, the end of Finchel. Santana had created a gaping wound big enough to drive a truck through and now all Quinn had to do was play the role of supportive friend all the while covertly delivering the coup de gras.

"Okay, enough already!" Schuester said loudly, jumping in too late as usual. "No more conversations about this or anything! This is our plan for Sectionals and that is that. Now Mike, Brittany, come on up and start choreographing."

###

For what was quite possibly the first time in the history of the glee club, Rachel was the first one out of the choir room after Schuester dismissed the meeting.

"You going after her this time?" Sam quietly inquired as Quinn scrambled to get her things together.

"Yep."

"Awesome, I'll run interference with the others."

Quinn flashed him at grateful smile as she pulled the zipper closed on her Cheerios gym bag and slung it over her shoulder before making a quick exit.

She didn't have to go far to find Rachel. The girl was huddled in the alcove down the hall from the choir room. It was the exact same spot where one year ago Quinn had come to lick her wounds after her own painful Finn-centric revelation. Only that time it had been Rachel coming to comfort her. Quinn had to appreciate the irony of it all...Wait, was it really ironic? That Alanis Morrisette song had really screwed with her understanding of that word.

As she cautiously approached the teary girl, Quinn remembered what Rachel had said when she overheard -okay, totally eavesdropped on- the girl's first ever conversation with her birth mother, about how Rachel could never tell if she was sad or thirsty because her fathers always gave her a glass of water when she was upset. Which in itself struck Quinn as incredibly sad, even in her ridiculously repressed family, her parents had always at least hugged her when she was upset. Always...Well except for that one time that they kicked her out of the house.

"Thirsty?" Quinn asked, dangling her Cheerios water bottle in front of Rachel's tear-streaked face.

Rachel smiled weakly up at her and took the offered bottle. "Thanks." She popped the top and drained almost half of the contents without appearing to take a breath.

"I'm sorry about before, calling you and Sam, Ken and Barbie," she apologized, handing the water bottle back to Quinn who tentatively took a seat beside her.

"Don't worry about it," Quinn said dismissively. "As far as insults go, it was pretty tame. Santana calls me worse than that every day. Besides, I totally get why you're upset. Mr. Schue shouldn't have taken the duet away from you, especially not based on the results of the competition that you rigged in the first place."

Rachel's eyes widened in surprise. "You knew about that?"

"Of course I did." Quinn chuckled. "You aren't as sneaky as you think you are. I figured you were up to something when you were so insistent that I sing with Sam and so I checked the votes after everyone else left. You and Finn were the only ones that didn't vote for themselves, it didn't take much to put two and two together. I knew that you were using me a bait to keep Sam in the club."

Rachel had the good grace to look ashamed. "Wait, if you knew that I was using you then why did you go along with it?"

_Because I can't say no to you._Outwardly, Quinn just shrugged. "Sam's a good guy, it's not like you were scheming to pimp me out to Jewfro or something...Look, I'll just go to Schue and tell him that me and Sam don't want the duet and to give it back to you and Finn, okay? I honestly don't know what the man was thinking with all of this. It makes about as much sense as it would for Coach Sylvester to bench Brittany for Nationals."

Between picking Sam and Quinn for the duet and then choosing quite possibly one of the cheesiest songs ever written -ranked only just below Evergreen, in Quinn's opinion- for them to perform, Quinn had to wonder if Schuester really was intentionally trying to throw the competition.

"Yes!" Rachel all but shouted, her frustration with Mr. Schuester's haphazard style of leadership getting the better of her. "The Warblers were already amazing and now they have Kurt, I don't understand how Mr. Schue can be so confident we'll be able to beat them that he wants to send in the C-team...No offence."

"None taken."

"It's like he doesn't even care that if we lose at Sectionals, glee club will be over for good."

Honestly that thought hadn't even occurred to Quinn. She'd completely forgotten that they still had to place at Regionals this year to secure the club's future and they wouldn't be able to do that if they lost at Sectionals. What in the holy hell was Schuester thinking when he decided to jeopardize the entire club's future in some misguided attempt to be fair.

"But still," Rachel continued. "I can't in all good conscience let you give up your duet for me."

_Wait, what?_"No, seriously, Rachel. I don't want it, I like swaying in the background while you sing, it's fun! I'm not like you, okay? I'm perfectly fine with not being in the spotlight. In fact, I prefer it. I mean, the thought of getting up there and having all those people looking at me, judging me. The fate of the glee club resting on my shoulders." Quinn was on the verge of a panic attack just thinking about it. "Seriously, I don't want it."

"You shouldn't be so afraid, Quinn," Rachel said, smiling encouragingly. "You have a lovely voice and as long we continue our lessons then I'm sure you won't embarrass yourself at Sectionals."

Rachel Berry turning down a chance to perform in front of an audience? No, there was definitely something more going on here and Quinn was sure it had to do with that moron Finn, he really did ruin everything. "I'd still prefer to give it to you."

Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'm afraid that singing a love ballad with Finn is the last thing I want to do right now. And I don't want to jeopardize our chances, any further than Mr. Schuester already has, by risking the judges sensing the insincerity in my performance," she said stiffly. "At least you and Sam are happy and in love."

"Yeah..." Quinn awkwardly agreed and quickly turned the conversation back to Finn's betrayal. "You know, I'm really sorry it all had to come out like that, I thought that Finn had already told you."

"Wait, you knew? For how long?"

"Since last year. Santana told Brittany and Brittany told me, I just assumed that Finn would have been honest with you about it," Quinn added slyly. "If it's any consolation, Santana said that he sucked in bed. She said that he was the worst she's ever had and she's had _a lot_so..." She trailed off at the utterly heartbroken look on Rachel's face. "And that isn't helping at all, I'm sorry."

She shifted closer to Rachel and hesitantly put her arm around the smaller girl's shoulders. "Look, I know that this hurts right now but I really think that you two breaking up will be the best-"

Rachel pulled away and looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"I'm not breaking up with Finn."

_Oh, you've got to be freaking kidding me!_"Rachel, he lied to you about having sex with someone else. With Santana!"

"That doesn't mean that we have to break up! In time we can get past this, this is just a bump in the road-"

"Pretty big bump," Quinn couldn't help remarking sarcastically, her pent up anger leaking out. "You're sixteen years old, Rachel, you shouldn't have to fight this hard to maintain a relationship. I mean, what the hell are you going to do to try and fix this, go to couples therapy?" Quinn laughed at the absurd suggestion. Rachel, on the other hand, looked like she was having some kind of eureka moment.

"Quinn, that's a brilliant idea!"

"What? No, it's not. It's a terrible idea."

"I don't know why I didn't think of it before," Rachel babbled excitedly. "It saved my father's marriage. I need to go make an appointment with Dr. Boumstien. Thanks, Quinn."

She squeezed Quinn in a quick hug, releasing her before Quinn even had a chance to enjoy it, much less reciprocate, and hopped up.

"You're welcome," Quinn muttered, letting her head thud back against the wall as Rachel skittered off down the hallway. She may have loved the girl but Rachel Berry was without a doubt the most frustrating person Quinn had ever met.

_###_

_I really need to find out who the architect was that designed this school,_ Quinn thought as she surreptitiously spied on Finn and Rachel's counseling session with Ms. Pillsbury, through the amazingly convenient glass wall of the guidance counselor's office. _Maybe send them a fruit basket or something._

Apparently, Dr. Boumstien hadn't been able to fit them in on such short notice, so in desperation Rachel had dragged Finn in to see Ms. Pillsbury. So far, much to Quinn's delight, things did not seem to going well at all.

Judging by the look on the redheaded teacher's face Finn had just said something incredibly stupid and insensitive and Rachel was about to either slap him or storm out.

_Oh crap._ Quinn gasped and whirled around, pretending to be completely absorbed in the school notice board, as Rachel came storming out of the room behind her. _Since when did we have a ninja club?_

Quinn oh-so-stealthily craned her head to follow Rachel's progress down the hall, smirking when she realized that she was heading towards the auditorium. Perfect.

_###_

_Eight Mississippi, nine Mississippi, ten Mississippi,_ Quinn counted in her head as she loitered just outside the doors to the auditorium. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't just go barging in there straight after Rachel. She didn't want Rachel to think that she was stalking her or something. _Twenty one Mississippi, twenty two Mississippi, twenty thr- Oh screw it, I'm going in._

She pushed the door open just enough to slip inside, letting it click shut behind her. Even across the huge empty room, the sobs of the girl sitting at the piano on stage could be heard.

"Rachel?" Quinn cautiously approached the girl who still hadn't realized that she wasn't alone. "Are you okay?" She played it perfectly, coming across as tentative but concerned.

Rachel's head shot up and her hands flew to her face, to try and scrub away any evidence of her tears. Never let them see you cry, it was one of her many mottos. "Quinn, what are you doing here?"

"I came to practice," Quinn lied, gesturing to the piano.

"By yourself? Where's Brad?" Rachel's head whipped around as she searched for the mysterious piano player who just always somehow happened to be there whenever needed.

Quinn shook her head and joined Rachel on the bench. "I don't need him, I can play."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I took a lessons for a few years when I was a kid." Before her clarinet lessons were dropped in favor of ballet ones, the violin replaced by gymnastics and finally piano abandoned for cheerleading. The day Quinn told her she was quitting the piano, her teacher, Mrs. Irving, had cried at the loss of her most promising student. It all seemed like a lifetime ago and in a way, Quinn supposed, it was.

Quinn set her hands on the keys and began to play the first thing that popped into her head. "I'm a little rusty, I haven't played in a while." That was a lie, she'd been practicing for weeks now, knowing that musicality was definitely an essential feature that Rachel looked for in a love interest. Puck could play guitar, Jesse the piano, even Finn was a drummer.

"Moonlight Sonata," Rachel said, recognizing the piece Quinn was playing.

"It's my favorite." Being the miserable little girl she was, it was no surprise that Quinn had always found herself being drawn to the more maudlin pieces. "So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the counseling session didn't go so well?"

"Understatement," Rachel huffed. "Finn doesn't seem to understand why I'm so upset that it was Santana that he slept with. He's acting like I don't have a right to be upset with him because we weren't together at the time."

"Of course he wouldn't understand why you're upset that he had sex with the girl that he broke up with for because she was more popular than you and then lied to your face about it," Quinn said with more than just a hint of bitterness. "It's not like he's ever understood your insecurities about her."

Finn made the girls he dated almost cripplingly insecure, Quinn had first hand knowledge of that. She didn't think he did it deliberately -although she was now starting to have her doubts that he was quite as clueless as he made himself out to be- but he'd always had wandering eyes, an almost pathological desire for what he couldn't have, and the keen ability to subconsciously identify and exploit a girl's insecurities to get her to do what he wanted. It was part of the reason Quinn had been such a raging bitch when she was with him.

Her own self-esteem crushing experiences while dating Finn were why she'd gone along with Rachel's insane scheme to test Finn's loyalty. Because just a year before she had been in Rachel's position, only then Rachel had been her Santana.

Rachel sighed and looked down at Quinn's long fingers moving deftly across the keys. She really was very good. "Maybe he's right though, maybe I'm making too big of a deal out of this."

"You're not," Quinn assured her. "He slept with Santana and lied about it. That is a big deal, even if you ignore the emotional aspect of it. You know that between having sex with Brittany and Puck and slutting it up with half the football team, Santana must be a walking petri dish of STDs, who knows what she might have given him that he could have passed onto you. I mean, you know how they say that when you have sex with someone you're also sleeping with everyone that they've had sex with? Well, by doing it with Santana, Finn's had sex with pretty much the entire town."

Rachel frowned. "Who told you that? I thought that you were excused from Sex Ed because of the Celibacy Club."

Quinn abruptly stopped playing. _Really? That's what she's focusing on?_"I was. And my doctor told me...just before he informed me that Puckerman had not only gotten me pregnant but he'd also given me chlamydia." It was something that Quinn had never planned on revealing to anyone and the half-shocked/half-disgusted expression on Rachel's face reminded her of why.

"I'm fine now though," she rushed to assure Rachel, not wanting her to think that she was some kind of diseased whore. "I took the drugs the doctor gave me and I'm totally clear...I just, I wanted you to understand where I'm coming from when I tell you that what he did is a big deal."

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that alone, Quinn."

"I'm not, I couldn't bear the thought of anyone finding out. It would be mortifying."

"But you told me," Rachel breathed, looking up at Quinn with the starry-eyed awestruck gaze that was usually reserved for one Finn Hudson.

"But I told you," Quinn repeated softly, holding Rachel's gaze until it started to overwhelm her. It was too much, too soon. She wasn't ready for Rachel to look at her like that yet.

She looked away, breaking the connection, clearing her throat loudly, and started playing again. Chopin, this time. Nocturne in E Flat Major. "So, um, since we're both here, do you mind helping me with the duet? It'll help to take your mind off things and, let's face it, I need all the practice I can get."

"Of course. You should text Sam, get him to meet us," Rachel suggested, shifting along the bench so she was sitting closer to Quinn. Way too close for cheerleader's comfort.

Quinn gulped, feeling Rachel's body heat radiating against her bare thighs, the close proximity was making her skin positively tingle. _Stupid Cheerios skirt._

"I really should," she muttered, not moving an inch, just in case she accidentally brushed against Rachel and it made her lose all pretence of having actual control over her body. She needed a buffer between them, she needed Sam to keep her from doing something incredibly stupid.

"Quinn?"

"Mmm-hmm?"

"Are you going to text him?" Rachel asked, frowning at Quinn's suddenly odd behavior.

"Yesss." _Good Lord, Quinn, get it together._

Leaning away from Rachel, Quinn used her left hand to fumble around in her bag until she found her phone and sent a quick text to Sam asking if he was available to rehearse with them.

There was an awkward silence between them as they waited for his reply. Rachel didn't understand it at all, one minute Quinn had been comforting her and divulging her darkest secrets and the next she was acting like she was about to jump out of her own skin.

They both jumped when Quinn's phone beeped as it received Sam's reply. **Sry cant. Football prac. Have fun tho!**

"He can't," Quinn informed Rachel, praying that she'd be able to keep herself in check without him. "He's got football practice."

"Looks like it's just you and me then."

"Looks like."

_Please God, don't let me do anything to screw this up._


	14. Chapter 13

"I think that we sounded really good together yesterday," Sam said, trying to distract Quinn from the conversation the others were having about how they were totally going to lose Sectionals. She was nervous enough as it was without the others feeding her insecurities.

"Me too," Quinn agreed, mustering up a big smile and trying to ignore what Brittany was saying about throwing possums at the Warblers.

She and Rachel had spent so much time rehearsing together that they'd still been going by the time Sam's football practice had finished. He'd shown up in the auditorium looking for her and been roped into a few quick run-throughs of their duet and then promptly given a list of things he wasn't allowed to eat or drink until after Sectionals so he didn't compromise his voice.

"I-Oh my God," he gasped as Rachel came striding through the doorway with a piece of duct tape across her mouth.

"What?" Quinn turned in her seat, curious to see what had made Sam go all bug-eyed. Which incidentally was not a good look for him, with those lips he kinda looked like a goldfish.

Her jaw dropped and her thighs automatically squeezed together. _Oh sweet Jesus!_Not that she'd ever have admitted it at the time but a gagged Rachel Berry was one of her top 5 fantasies during her sophomore year.

"Rachel, what are you doing?" Mr. Schuester sighed in annoyance. As if he didn't have enough problems to deal with already.

Rachel rolled her eyes and carefully peeled the tape partially off. "I'm not doing anything. You've silenced my talents, I'm merely protesting." The tape went back on then came off again just as quickly."My talents are wasted in this club. My star shines too bright and I think you're threatened by it."

Rachel had hit a nerve, Quinn knew it even before Mr. Schue slammed his sheet music down on the piano and whirled around to scream at her.

"Take that off!"

Everyone jumped in shock at his sudden and uncharacteristic change demeanor.

"I'm tried of this Rachel," Schue said as he stalked towards Rachel, his body language far more aggressive and threatening than a teacher's had any right to be. The rest of the club squirmed awkwardly in their seats and looked away. As annoyed as some of them were with Rachel, none of them took any pleasure in this, it was like watching their mom and dad fight. "You have a terrible attitude, you're a lousy sport and it is not okay any more!"

"Well I'm upset!" Rachel gave back as good as she got, standing up and getting in his face. "I'm furious about this. About a couple of things actually," she added with a pointed look towards her boyfriend.

"Well, I'm sorry you're disappointed," he growled.

No, he wasn't. He wasn't sorry at all. He was enjoying this, Quinn realized as she watched him verbally abuse Rachel. A shiver went through her, she never thought that Mr. Schuester would ever remind her so much of her father.

Sam looked over at Quinn, waiting for her to do something. He wanted to stand up for Rachel -what Mr. Schue was doing to her wasn't right and he was pretty sure that if a teacher had singled a student out and talked to them like that at his old school they would have been fired- but he didn't want to step on Quinn's toes if she was gearing up to have a big heroic moment where she swooped in and saved Rachel from their teacher's beratement. So he just kept his mouth shut and waited.

"But, you know, you could also make the choice to be happy." Mr. Schuester continued in the same ugly tone. Taking all his frustrations -with Rachel, with the rest of his students for being such bad sports, with himself for ever thinking that changing things up would be a good idea, with Emma for planting the idea in his head in the first place- out on the difficult diva.

"That we're a part of a glee club that's bursting at the seams with talent," he continued and then went on to lecture them about all being selfish and poor sports. The words pot, kettle and black sprung to Quinn's mind.

Then Puck walked in with Lauren Zizes, of all people, on his arm and things just got weirder.

###

Finally the glee practice from Hell was over.

After Mr. Schue's angry outburst everyone was so afraid of being yelled at they all mostly kept their mouths shut and unenthusiastically rehearsed the dance steps that Mike and Brittany had come up with for them for Valerie while Santana sang. Basically they were all just counting down the seconds until practice was over and they could escape the stiflingly tense atmosphere of the choir room.

As soon as the club was dismissed, Rachel was out the door. Quinn quickly started gathering her things, intent on chasing after the girl but Mr. Schuester quickly threw a wrench in those plans.

"Quinn, Sam, I need you two to stay back a moment."

Quinn rolled her eyes and threw her bag back at her seat, making her displeasure clear. Not that their teacher noticed or cared.

"I know that we didn't get a chance to work your duet today guys-"

"That's okay," Quinn interrupted, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible so she could go and find Rachel. "We've been practicing in our own time."

"That's great!" The teacher exclaimed happily, relieved that the blondes were actually taking the initiative. Maybe he hadn't made a colossal mistake in choosing them to perform the duet. "Let's just quickly run through it, I want to hear how you guys are doing."

Resigning themselves to the fact that they weren't getting out of their without singing the song that they both had already grown to despise, Sam and Quinn made their way over to the piano where Brad was waiting and ready to play.

"Okay, guys, from the top," Mr. Schue instructed, clapping his hands together.

Sam cleared his throat and began to sing. "Now I've had the time-"

"Whoa!" Schuester immediately interrupted. "Hold up, Sam, you're in the wrong key, that's way too low."

"Oh yeah," Sam said, sheepishly scratching at the back of his head. "Rachel changed it, she said the key you had it in was too high for me and that it sounded better this way."

And she was right.

"Rachel?"

"Yeah, she's been helping us out a lot, actually," Quinn said, practically daring Mr. Schuester to have a problem with it.

Will's jaw clenched. Were there any lengths that Rachel wouldn't go to to undermine his authority? "Well, I don't care what Rachel said. I'm running this glee club and I arranged the song in that key for a reason and that's the key that you're going to be performing it in."

"But-"

"No buts, Sam! I don't want to hear it! Now let's try this again _in the original key._"

###

The Mission Impossible theme played in Sam's head as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket and weaved through the maze of discarded props and scenery that littered the backstage area of the auditorium.

Quinn had been unavoidably detained by Coach Sylvester during their lunch period, so she'd sent him on a mission to ask Rachel if they were still on for their practice session that afternoon. Well, actually it was more like a mission to make sure that Rachel was okay after everything that had happened yesterday, under the guise of making sure that their practice session was still on.

After Mr. Schuester had finally let them go, Quinn had failed to be able to locate Rachel in any of the girl's usual haunts and when the texts she'd sent -all two of them, anything more would've come off as desperate, she explained to him- went unanswered, she'd become almost frantic and he'd spent half of yesterday's afternoon trying to talk her down.

So when Quinn had sent him a text message telling him to go and find Rachel, Sam didn't even think twice about changing his course to cut across the football field and enter through the back door to the auditorium.

"Sam Evans, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to locate one Rachel Berry and covertly assess her physical and mental state," Sam said softly to himself, doing his best Jim Phelps impression. "This message with self-destruct in-"

Sam slowed down, hearing two very familiar voices coming from the stage up ahead of him. What was Kurt doing there and why were they talking about Celine Dion?

"Do you ever fantasize about your own funeral?" Sam frowned as he heard Rachel ask. _What the actual hell?_

"No." Kurt sounded like he was on the same wavelength.

"I do. Finn throwing himself into the grave out of grief and the heartfelt speeches and the regrets."

"That's insane."

On that, Sam didn't agree with Kurt. He didn't think it was insane. He just thought it was really, really sad. Their own funeral is not something a sixteen year old should even be thinking about, let alone fantasizing about.

"Clearly no one in the glee club appreciates me, is it so wrong for me to fantasize about them finally realizing how amazing I am but it being too late?"

Sam worried his plump bottom lip between his teeth, did Rachel really think that nobody in the glee club appreciated her? That wasn't true, Quinn did, for one, and so did he and he was sure that the others did too, even if they didn't exactly go out of their ways to show it a lot of the time...or most of the time...or pretty much all of the time.

Obviously, he and Quinn were just going to have to pick up their game.

He inched out from where he was mostly hidden in the wings as Rachel sang some song about Argentina crying. Wow. She was really, really good. If she sang that at Sectionals they would win for sure.

As Rachel's final, pitch perfect note rang out through the empty auditorium, Sam couldn't help but start clapping. Rachel and Kurt both jumped, startled by the sudden and unexpected applause.

"Sorry," Sam apologized, stepping forward to join them. "It's just...that was really awesome, Rachel."

"Thank you, Sam." Rachel blushed and ducked her head as she wiped her eyes. "But what are you doing here?"

"Oh, um, just wanted to make sure that you were still cool to help me and Quinn rehearse our duet this afternoon."

Rachel scowled at Kurt, who's eyebrows had raised at this new information -Despite their tenuous new friendship, she still didn't quite trust him not to relay this information back to his Warbler friends at Dalton-, before plastering a wide smile on her face for Sam. "Of course I am, Sam."

"Awesome." He grinned at her.

"Rachel." Kurt stepped forward, stereo in hand. "Thank you for all your help but I'd really better get going before Karofsky gets back."

They shared a farewell hug that was only slightly awkward.

"I'll walk you out," Sam offered. "You know, just in case."

"Thanks, Sam."

If only there were a few more boys like Sam Evans at McKinley, Kurt may never have left.

###

Sectionals was turning out to be a complete disaster and they hadn't even performed yet.

The bus ride there had been even more morose than last years, if that was possible. Rachel sat up the back, as far away from Finn as possible, with Sam and Quinn -which would have been a good thing if Rachel hadn't insisted that the pair remain silent to preserve their vocal chords before their big performance- and there was a weird tension going on between Tina and Mike and Artie and Brittany that nobody could quite figure out.

There had been a brief conversation amongst the group who weren't banned from speaking, lamenting the fact that they were almost certainly going to lose the competition but that was cut short when Mr. Schue started yelling at them and berating them for being bad sports again. Of course, that had put them all in an even fouler mood and nobody felt much like speaking at all after that.

The team was gathered in the lobby, impatiently waiting for Mr. Schuester to come back from getting them signed in with the officials, when Rachel started rooting around in the large bag she had slung over her shoulder.

"Here," she said, passing a bedazzled thermos to Quinn. "It's lukewarm pineapple juice. During my many years of performing, I've found that it lubricates the vocal chords far better than just warm water or tea. Trust me, there's nothing more detrimental to a performance than a dry throat."

Quinn nodded dumbly, clutching the thermos to herself as Rachel once again reached into her bag of tricks, quickly producing a small jar of honey and a teaspoon and handing them off to Sam.

"And this is Manuka honey, Mariah Carey swears by it. Just take a spoonful of this a few minutes before you go on and let it coat your throat, it'll help."

"Why are they getting special treatment?" Lauren Zizes enquired sardonically.

"I-Well," Rachel stuttered as she turned and found Lauren's imposing form to be closer than she'd expected. "They're our star performers. We need them at the top of their game." She would've offered Santana the same assistance, except she was fairly certain it would've just been thrown back in her face...also, she kind of hated her.

Lauren's eyes narrowed behind thick lenses as she loomed over the smaller girl. "I want Rasinettes."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. If I don't get them, I don't go on."

Rachel was flabbergasted. "But we need you to compete!"

"Then I guess you'd better hurry up and get me my candy," Lauren said with a sickeningly sweet smile.

"Hey," Quinn tried to interject but was quickly shushed by Rachel.

"Fine," Rachel reluctantly backed down, not wanting to start yet another fight. "You'll get your damn candy."

Lauren smirked triumphantly and moved to rejoin Puckerman, who was leaning up against a pillar and glaring at some random Warlbers, hoping to intimidate them into messing up their performance with his badassness.

Rachel let out a distressed squeak and headed in the opposite direction, making a beeline for Mr. Schue to inform him of this latest setback.

Unfortunately, their teacher wasn't nearly as sympathetic to her latest problem as she'd expected him to be. "Well, what did you expect by giving Sam and Quinn special treatment in front of the others?" the harried teacher questioned.

"I was trying to help!" Rachel insisted.

Help? Will eyed the ambitious girl suspiciously. He wouldn't have put it past her to have put something in the juice she'd given the blonde couple that would render Sam and Quinn unable to perform, just so she could swoop in and save the day at the last minute. Compared to sending a foreign exchange student to a crackhouse, that kind of sabotage was child's play. "Look, Rachel, I have a million things to do right now. You're going to have to handle this yourself."

Rachel gaped at him. She couldn't believe he was being so spectacularly unhelpful. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Well, Rachel, if I were you, I'd get the lady her candy."


	15. Chapter 15

"So there's no eggs in these?"

"Nope."

"And no butter?"

"That's right."

"And no milk?" Sam asked, giving up on trying to read the recipe. He set the printed out paper down on the counter and focused on Quinn who was diligently measuring out the various ingredients.

"Kind of," Quinn corrected him as she carefully poured said milk into a measuring cup. "I'm using almond milk."

Sam frowned. You could get milk out of almonds? How was that even possible? They didn't even have teets!

"Hmmm." He rested chin on his hand and stared pensively at the mixing bowl that Quinn had started adding ingredients to. If they had none of the ingredients in them that made cupcakes cupcakes then could they really be considered cupcakes? Still he could think of worse ways to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon than keeping Quinn company while she baked. "So why are you making vegan cupcakes?"

"I told you, it's Rachel's birthday tomorrow and I want to do something nice for her," Quinn answered.

"I know that but I mean why a cupcake, why not just a regular cake?"

"Because, Sam, if I made her a whole cake she wouldn't be able to eat it by herself then she'd end up trying to share it with the others and get her feelings hurt when they reject her," she patiently explained. "Besides, this is way more thoughtful and personal."

At least, Quinn hoped that Rachel would see it that way. Things between them had been rather...strained since the Monday after Sectionals, where they were lucky to pull off a tie against the Warblers. Quinn knew that the only thing that had saved them from a catastrophic loss was Santana's performance of Valerie, not that she'd ever admit that out loud, she just hoped that the shock of almost losing was enough to keep Mr. Schuester from coming up with anymore hair-brained schemes for the next competition.

Regardless, Quinn had been riding high after managing to not completely humiliate herself on stage and with the gossip that had been buzzing around the school about a very public Finchel break up. Naturally, she assumed that Rachel had been the one to come to her sense and ended it. She should have realized that something was wrong when Rachel gave up the solo Mr. Schuester offered her but it was only when she had stayed behind to offer Rachel a shoulder to cry on after the performance -during which Rachel had held her hand. Her hand!- that she had discovered the depressing truth and every trace of her good mood had disappeared in that instant.

Of course she'd lost her temper and was far harsher with Rachel than she should've been, causing the younger girl to flee the auditorium in tears. Quinn had called her that night to explain the best she could and apologize but things had been awkward between them ever since.

Sam sighed when he realized that Quinn was completely lost in her thoughts -bad ones, judging by the stony look on her face-, and had probably forgotten that he was even there. She'd been doing that more and more lately.

"I don't get why you've been in such a bad mood lately," he said, snapping her out of it. "Rachel and Finn have broken up, you got what you wanted. Shouldn't you be like doing cartwheels or something?"

"Oh, I would be if Rachel had been the one to end it instead of it being the other way around," she said, setting the mixing bowl on her hip and starting to aggressively fold its contents together with a wooden spoon.

"Does it really make a difference who dumped who?" Sam was so glad that he wasn't a girl. It all just seemed so complicated.

"Of course it makes a difference!" Quinn cried out.

"Look, you just don't understand what Rachel's like, okay? Now that Finn's dumped her she's going to be more obsessed with him than ever before. There's no telling what pathetic lengths she'll go to to try and win him back. And all because she went and tried to have sex with Puck!" she ranted, mixing the cupcake batter so violently that Sam feared that the handle of the wooden spoon would surely break. "Even after I told her-"

Her mouth and body screeched to a halt as she realized how close she was to revealing such delicate information.

Now Sam's curiosity was peaked. "Told her what?"

"Nothing." She resumed mixing at a much calmer pace. "Just how much of a jerk he can be."

"Oh."

Quinn sighed and grabbed the baking trays she'd prepared earlier with one hand, pulling them closer so she could fill them. "I mean, I kind of get it. Rachel was hurt and vulnerable and Puck was there to take advantage of that." All things considered, Rachel was lucky she hadn't ended up riddled with STDs and pregnant. "I should've been there, if only Mr. Schue hadn't held us back after glee, I would've been there."

"Yeah but if you had been then Rachel wouldn't have made out with Puck and she and Finn would still be together," Sam reasoned before Quinn could start beating herself up over it again. " And you can't go back and change the past...unless you're a time traveler." He eyed her with mock suspicion. "You're not a time traveler are you?"

Quinn had to laugh at him. "I wish." There was so much -_so much_- that she would change if only she had the power to.

"Right, so you gotta find the silver lining instead. Like that Rachel's single and will have more free time to spend with you now."

"Optimism isn't exactly a trait that runs in my family," Quinn admitted, wearily, as she spooned the batter into the cases. "But you're right. I just have to stay positive."

#

The next morning before school officially started Quinn was standing in front of her open locker trying to figure out the best course of action. _If I give it to her now then it's just going to sit in her locker until lunch time but if I wait then it's just going to be sitting in **my** locker until then so there's not really much of a difference. Besides I want to be the first person to wish her a happy birthday._

Taking one last deep breath, Quinn grabbed the small cake box from her locker and, after a moments hesitation, she also pocketed a small, flat box that was tastefully wrapped, before resolutely slamming the locker closed and confidently striding over to Rachel who was collecting her books for first period.

"Hey," she said, shyly.

Rachel whirled around, surprised that Quinn was talking to her again. "Quinn, hello."

"Um, happy birthday," Quinn said lamely, holding out the cake box in front of her.

"For me?" Rachel muttered, shocked, as she hesitantly took the box from Quinn's hands. She'd thought that the text from Kurt and a group 'Happy Birthday' from Tina, Mike, Artie and Mercedes that had been muttered in passing was all the acknowledgement of her birthday she was going to get and now Quinn Fabray was standing in front of her holding a cake.

"It's red velvet and totally vegan," Quinn assured her. "I baked it myself to make absolutely sure."

A cake that she had baked herself and, from the look of the immaculate frosting and the sprinkling of what Rachel would later find out were edible real gold stars, she'd obviously put a lot of effort into it.

"It's not poisoned or anything. At least, I hope not because Sam ate like five of them." Despite his insistence that vegan cupcakes could not be classified as real cupcakes, once he'd got started he couldn't stop. Thankfully, Quinn only needed the one.

"Quinn," Rachel finally spoke. "I...this is very sweet of you but you really didn't have to go to so much trouble."

"It wasn't any trouble. I actually like to bake."

"Nobody's ever cooked for me before," Rachel said, still reverently staring at the baked item before her.

She finally looked up and smiled gratefully at her friend."Thank you, Quinn."

Quinn returned the smile, her confidence buoyed by how successfully the conversation was going thus far, she decided to forge ahead. "Oh, that's not your present."

Rachel frowned at the box she'd just placed in her locker for safe keeping. "It isn't?"

"No, silly, that's just your cake. This is your birthday present," she said, pulling out the gift wrapped box that was practically burning a hole in her pocket. "Or a birthday slash Christmas slash Hanukkah present to be more precise."

Rachel eagerly accepted the gift and ripped away the wrapping paper -there were few things she liked more than receiving gifts- to reveal the flat jewelry box underneath.

"Oh, Quinn," Rachel gasped as she opened the box to reveal the sterling silver charm bracelet nestled inside. There were four charms attached to the delicate chain; a gold star, of course, a treble clef, a pirouetting ballerina and a heart.

"I was looking for a gift for my mom when I saw it and thought of you," Quinn said, fidgeting nervously. Giving each other expensive jewelry was something that friends did, wasn't it? "And it was like sixty percent off, so...do you like it?"

Rachel didn't know what she'd done to deserve this but she certainly wasn't going to complain about receiving free jewelry, especially when it didn't look like she'd be receiving any from her boyfriend -and yes, Finn was still her boyfriend, thank you very much. She was clinging to the fact that they weren't officially broken up yet- this birthday.

"It's beautiful, I love it!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around a stunned Quinn in an impulsive hug. "Thank you so, so much."

Quinn blushed furiously and tentatively hugged her back.

"Oh god," said Rachel as she pulled away looking sheepish. "I'm sorry, I usually warn people before I hug them."

"Rachel," Quinn chuckled. "It's fine. And just for the record, you can hug me anytime you want, you don't have to warn me in advance."

"I'll keep that in mind. But really, you didn't have to do all this."

"I wanted to. It's your first birthday as my friend, I wanted to make it special."

"Well, you have," Rachel assured her, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, as she removed the bracelet from it's box and tried to put it on.

Rachel was clearly struggling to do the bracelet up, so Quinn smoothly stepped in to help. "Here, let me."

She took the bracelet from Rachel and fumbled with the tiny clasp before finally getting it open. She stepped in close to her and looped the chain around her thin wrist. _God, she smells good,_ Quinn thought as she fastened it closed, letting her hand linger on the soft skin of Rachel's wrist. _Like oranges and cinnamon and her skin is so soft, she must moisturize a lot...Is this creepy? I feel like this is creepy. Actually, I think I'm about ten stops past creepy. Back away, Quinn! Back away now!_

Quinn stepped back, clearing her throat. Thankfully, Rachel apparently hadn't picked up on her creepiness and looked up at her with a wide grin and adoring eyes.

"How does it look?" Rachel asked shyly.

"Perfect" Quinn replied softly before clearing her throat. "Want to walk to homeroom with me?"

Rachel nodded happily. She'd been afraid that with the drama she and Finn were currently going through, she would be forced to walk the perilous halls of McKinley alone -not that she was necessarily opposed to it she just preferred not to- again. While it wasn't a hundred percent guarantee, hanging off the arm of the star quarterback did offer her some degree of protection from the bullies. There were only a few brave enough to throw slushie -or whatever disgusting liquid substance the jocks were drenching the lesser kids in this week- on her when there was a risk they'd get any on Finn and his letterman jacket. In that regard, Rachel supposed, Quinn was a more than worthy substitute for her boyfriend. Everyone knew that as long as she was in that Cheerios uniform, Quinn was untouchable, to risk sullying her would be social suicide.

She quickly gathered the rest of her things from her locker, including the cupcake that Quinn had so thoughtfully baked for her.

"You're going to eat that now?" Quinn asked as they walked side by side towards their shared homeroom.

"Of course." Rachel peeled back the paper and took a bite.

"Oh my God," she moaned as she chewed. "This is the best thing I've ever had in my mouth!"

Quinn blushed and giggled to herself. This was working out far better than she ever could have imagined.

#

Quinn preferred to consider herself to mostly be a good person, her plotting against Finn notwithstanding. She went to church, she said her prayers, frequently donated to charity. Hell, she even helped that little old lady to cross the street that one time. So she had absolutely no problem with Mr. Schuester wanting to raise money for McKinney-Vento. In fact, given her own experiences with homelessness in the past year, she thought it was an excellent idea. In theory. It was the execution that she had a problem with.

What made the man think that going caroling classroom to classroom would get them anything other than abuse and shoes hurled at them by their fellow students and a few of the more unprofessional members of the faculty, she'd never know.

And while she was on the subject of terrible, no good, very bad ideas then there was Artie, who'd somehow managed to rope them all into his quest to preserve Brittany's innocently childlike belief in Santa Claus, which was already unraveling at the seams thanks to a mall Santa and Brittany's request to him to make her permanently, irreversibly crippled boyfriend walk again.

Quinn wondered if it had occurred to Artie that Brittany probably would've kept on believing in Santa, just as she had for the previous sixteen years of her life before dating him, without his interference and that he'd just completely unnecessarily complicated the situation, making himself the sole reason that Brittany lost the very childlike belief that he'd been trying so hard to preserve in the first place.

Sure, Quinn could've pointed this out to him at any time before they'd arrived at the mall but she honestly just didn't care enough to even try. Especially when she doubted that Artie would listen to her. Besides, in her opinion, Brittany could only benefit from being jolted from the childish fantasy world that the people closest to her seemed determined to keep her in for reasons that weren't exactly clear to Quinn. What was clear to her was that they were doing Brittany no favors by coddling her so much and were, in fact, only setting her up to have her naivety taken advantage of once she stepped out into the real world.

Anyway now Artie was in complete panic mode, he'd tasked Santana and Quinn with keeping Brittany distracted while he had an emergency meeting with his boys to discuss this latest distressing development.

"I have to go to the pet store," Brittany announced as they meandered through the mall. "Artie said that he wanted a new mouse for Christmas."

"That's cool," said Santana, linking her pinkie with Brittany's and not bothering to correct her. The look on Artie's face would be priceless. "I need to pick up a Christmas present for Lord Tubbs anyways."

That right there was part of the problem, Quinn thought, if nobody ever bothered to correct her, how was Brittany ever supposed to learn anything? Whatever, it wasn't any of Quinn's business, she had enough of her own problems to worry about.

"Just make sure not to get him anything with catnip in it. It's bad enough that he's addicted to crack now without him becoming a cannibal as well."

Quinn just rolled her eyes. Of course Brittany thought that catnip was made of actual cats. Unfortunately for her, Santana caught her.

"Don't you have something better to do, Q? Shouldn't you be off sucking face with Trouty Mouth under some mistletoe somewhere? Or better yet, getting high off your new BFF's loser fumes."

"Stop it, Santana," Quinn scolded her. "You know, if you just gave her a chance you'd realize that Rachel really isn't that bad."

"Hey, if you want to ignore the fact that your social stock drops every second you spend with the Hobbit, then by all means, go for it. In fact, nothing makes me happier than your newfound friendship with the dwarf because you keep it up and in a few weeks you'll be finding yourself back on the bottom of the pyramid and I'll be back on top, where I belong."

"But Santana, you're a bottom," Brittany said innocently. "Remember?"

Quinn smothered a laugh as Santana blushed bright red and started stammering. She decided to take pity on her friend and ignore it. "You really think I care about any of that stuff anymore?"

"You sure as hell cared at the start of the year when you threw me under the bus," Santana snarled, still flushed with embarrassment.

"That was then, this is now. I've changed my mind."

"You change your mind more often than I change my underwear," Santana scoffed in disgust. Could Quinn possibly be more trite?

"Ew."

"And where is Berry anyway? I thought you two were attached at the hip these days."

"She's Jewish."

"So?"

"So she doesn't believe in Santa Claus."

Brittany gasped and Santana glared at Quinn.

"That's so sad," Brittany said, looking genuinely upset.

"Yeah, it's a real fricken tragedy." Santana took Brittany by the arm and started pulling her towards the elevators and away from Quinn. "Come on Britts, let's go get our pet store on. Later, Q-Ball."

Quinn would've been mad if she wasn't already used to being unceremoniously ditched by her so called best friends.

#

A rude shock awaited the Glee Club in the choir room the next morning. Their sanctuary had been vandalized, their Christmas tree destroyed and the presents, that Mr Schue had repo-ed from Coach Sylvester and had been intending to donate to McKinney-Vento, stolen.

They'd been outraged and wanted revenge but Brittany, who had actually caught the culprit red handed, insisted that it was Santa and he was only trying to help them out.

"At first it was kinda amusing but now it's actually getting dangerous." Quinn complained to Sam as he reapplied his Chapstick in front of the mirror in his locker. She noticed that his supply was running low and made a mental note to get him some more for Christmas. "I mean, she walked in on a burglary in process and truly believes it was Santa Claus. She's lucky that she didn't get hurt. This madness has got to stop."

"Well, yeah, but do you really want to be the one to tell her?" Sam popped the top back on his chapstick and replaced it on it's rack. "Besides, Artie would be super pissed if you did. I mean, after everything we went through to talk Coach Beiste into dressing up as Santa and breaking into Brittany's house."

"You what?"

Sam's eyes widened. "Oh crap. I don't think I was supposed to tell you about that."

"Talk. Now," Quinn commanded.

"Coach is just going to pretend to be Santa so she can let Brittany down easy about not being able to make Artie walk for Christmas. I came up with an awesome cover story about elf core blood, by the way. Artie's hoping if she hears it from jolly old Saint Nick himself, she won't be disappointed when it doesn't happen and will keep believing."

"And Coach Beiste is actually going along with this?" Quinn asked in disbelief.

"Well, she took some convincing, but yeah."

Quinn just shook her head. What the hell is wrong with the authority figures in this school? "Whatever. I have to go and meet Rachel in the auditorium, she wants to give me my Christmas present."

"Do you want me to come with you?" Sam offered as Quinn walked away.

"Don't take this the wrong way." She twirled around so she was walking backwards. "But I really don't."

#

Quinn could barely contain the butterflies in her tummy as she made her way towards the auditorium. She'd been pleasantly surprised when Rachel had called her the night before, demanding to know what her favorite Christmas carol was. When she'd asked why she wanted to know, Rachel had told her that she was very specific when she gave a gift. Quinn had insisted that she didn't have to give her anything, she knew that Rachel didn't celebrate Christmas and she certainly wasn't expecting anything in return but Rachel would not be swayed.

As soon as Quinn pushed her way thought the auditorium doors, her attention was captured by the elaborate winter wonderland that had been set out on the stage and the girl who was standing right in the middle of it.

"Wow." Quinn was sure her jaw was still hanging open as she made her way up the steps to join Rachel on the stage. That's when she realized it was snowing. Snowing inside. Rachel had made it snow inside for her. "Rachel...this is incredible."

Rachel smiled shyly at Quinn's awestruck reaction. This was already going so much better than the last time she'd tried this. She never thought she'd ever use the word in relation to Quinn, but the look of childlike wonder on the head cheerleader's face as she took in her surroundings could only possibly be described as adorable.

She dragged a stool over. "Here, sit."

Quinn quickly did as she was told and was promptly rewarded with a silver box tied with a light blue ribbon being shoved into her hands.

"This is for you," Rachel said, nervously biting her lip as she waited for Quinn's reaction.

Quinn bit down hard on her own lip to try and keep herself from smiling like an idiot as she eagerly opened the box to reveal what was inside. "The barer of this note is entitled to one song of Rachel Berry's choosing, sung to him or her with love," she read out loud.

Love. _Love._ Love! Okay, so Quinn rationally knew that it wasn't romantic love or even friendly and was most likely just a figure of speech but still...LOVE!

For the record, Rachel Berry was NOT usually a regifter and she honestly did feel guilty about doing it to Quinn. She'd wanted to return the favor after Quinn had been so thoughtful and kind but had run into a rather insurmountable problem when she realized that she didn't really know what Quinn liked beyond reading and being the prettiest girl Rachel had ever laid eyes on. However it hadn't escaped her attention that Quinn had always seemed to enjoy watching her perform -and really, who could blame her- and everything was still set up in the auditorium and the AV club really had gone to so much trouble to make the fake snow. It seemed like such a waste not to use it again.

She couldn't describe how relieved she'd been when Quinn had told her that her favorite Christmas carol was _O Holy Night,_a song that she had been one of her own personal favorites since the moment she'd heard it despite the religious aspects. Rachel didn't know what she would've done if Quinn's favorite carol had been something silly like _Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer_ or _Please, Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)._

Rachel took her place at the center of the stage and took a breath to prepare herself. She hadn't asked the jazz band to assist her this time, she couldn't risk it getting back to Finn or Quinn that she'd tried to give them both the same Christmas present, deciding instead to challenge herself by doing it a cappella instead. "Merry Christmas, Quinn."

The minute Rachel opened her mouth to sing, Quinn felt like she'd died and gone to Heaven. Because nothing on Earth could possibly measure up to Rachel Berry singing to her and only her.

For her part, Rachel had never before realized how intoxicating it was having Quinn Fabray's undivided attention focused upon oneself could be. It was like having the world's brightest spotlight shone directly on you -hot, blinding and intense- and there were very few things in life that Rachel loved more than the spotlight. She closed her eyes, throwing herself into the song, determined to soak up as much of the attention as she could.

Try as she might to contain herself, by the time the song hit it's crescendo, Quinn was squirming in her seat so much that she nearly fell off her stool and, much to her mortification, she couldn't stop a small whimper from escaping her lips. Listening to Rachel voice was usually an incredibly gratifying experience but Rachel's voice singing this song? The only way to describe it was orgasmic, as crude as that may be, and Quinn knew that it was probably the closest thing to a religious experience as she was ever likely to get.

Somehow Quinn managed to get control of her limbs enough to applaud as the song came to an end and Rachel took the most adorable little bow.

"I-um, w-wow," she stuttered. She opened her mouth to say more but nothing would come out. There were no words that could have possibly done that performance justice. "Wow."

Rachel was pleased as punch at Quinn's reaction. She couldn't be more proud that she'd managed to render the queen bee speechless with nothing but the power of her voice.

"Thank you, that was incredible," Quinn finally managed to get out.

Rachel preened under the praise. "You're very welcome, Quinn."

"And how did you manage to get it to snow in here?" Quinn asked, as some of the fake flakes caught on her eyelashes.

"Oh, I just used my magical powers..." Rachel humbly bragged. "To bribe the AV club into doing it."

Quinn chuckled. Yeah, she could totally see Rachel doing that. "And the trees?"

"They're from the prop department. For a school without a drama club, our collection of props really is surprisingly elaborate."

"You know, we could probably just use one of these trees to replace the one we lost in the choir room," Quinn suggested. "Then we could donate the money we would've spent on a new one to McKinney-Vento." It wouldn't come close to covering the money lost with the gifts that had been stolen but it was a start.

"But Finn doesn't like artificial Christmas trees," Rachel blurted out in a panic, immediately opposed to the idea. "That's why he's taking me to the Christmas tree lot this afternoon to pick out a new one."

And just like that Quinn's bubble burst. "Of course. It's always about what Finn wants, right?" she bitterly remarked.

That just put Rachel on the defensive. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Quinn had learned her lesson and knew that it was best she left before she said something that she'd regret. Again. "Nothing. Thanks for the song, Rachel, but I really have to go."

Quinn Fabray was without a doubt the most confusing person that Rachel had ever met. One minute she was all smiles, basking in the glow of Rachel's immense talent and then the second Finn's name is mentioned it's like a switch gets flipped. When Rachel tried to think of possible reasons why, only one answer made any sense but it was so distressing to her that she wouldn't even let the thought form fully in her mind. But the seed had still been planted, whether she liked it or not.

#

First of all, Quinn would like to make it very clear that what she was doing was not stalking. No, it was just one friend showing an appropriate amount of friendly concern for another friend. When she found out that Rachel had made plans with Finn to go hunting for a new Christmas tree for the glee club, to replace the one that Sue -honestly, Quinn didn't know how her coach thought that she wasn't going to notice the abundance of gifts that had been stolen from the choir room filling her office when she'd called Quinn in for their weekly meeting.- destroyed, she just knew that Finn was going to end up letting Rachel down again and leaving her in need of a shoulder to cry on. Quinn's shoulder.

And as usual, her instincts proved one hundred percent correct when it came to one Finn Hudson. As he walked away, literally abandoning Rachel in the middle of the Christmas tree lot, Quinn didn't know if she hated him for consistently being such a selfish jackass or loved him because he was continually presenting her with opportunities to get one up on him.

"Rachel? Hey, I thought I could hear you singing over here," Quinn said as she stepped out from the row of trees she'd been hiding lurking innocently loitering behind.

"Quinn!" Rachel exclaimed, surprised but still happy to see her. "What are you doing here?"

"Picking up a tree. We've left it a little late this year, I know, but this is the kind of thing that my dad usually dealt with so..."she trailed off, allowing herself to look sad for a moment before her mask slipped back into place. "Anyway, where's Finn? I thought that you two were supposed to be coming here together."

Rachel's shoulders slumped as she was reminded of the humiliating rejection she'd suffered just minutes earlier. "Oh, we did. But, um, he had to...leave."

"So he just left you here. By yourself. Without a ride home."

Rachel cringed. When Quinn laid it all out like that of course it made Finn sound kind of bad. "He had a family emergency," she lied, not knowing that Quinn already knew the whole story.

"Oh, well I hope everything's okay with him," Quinn played along. "But still, I guess it's lucky I'm here. There's no reason the whole Glee club should have to suffer just because Finn had to bail, right?"

"I-I guess. Will you have room for two trees on your car?"

"It'll be fine, Sam loaned me his Dad's truck so there's plenty of room." Quinn grinned and looped her arm around Rachel's. "Come on, let's check out the Frasers."

#

And so they managed to get the tree for the choir room but the gifts were still gone and the poor homeless kids were going to be going without school supplies this Christmas unless they did something. Then somebody brought up Gift of the Magi and then all of a sudden it was decided that the boys were going to pawn their watches and the girls would sell their hair.

Thankfully, Mr Schuester intervened before anybody could permanently maim themselves. He sat down with them and gave them a really depressing talk about Christmas, that made Quinn feel really sorry for him and his crappy life, before announcing that they were going to go caroling again. Nobody openly complained this time but there were still glum faces all around.

"Come on, guys!" he tried to encourage them. He clapped his hands together and stood up. "This year, instead of focusing on all the things we don't have, we should try and focus on the things we do, like this beautiful new tree that Finn and Rachel got for us."

"Actually, Mr. Schuester, it was Quinn and I who got the tree," Rachel corrected him, turning slightly in her seat to shoot Finn a dirty look. "Finn bailed on me after we got to the tree lot."

"Nice Christmas spirit, Finn," Brittany said, disapprovingly.

Finn, at least, had the grace to look ashamed of himself.

"Quinn, what the hell were you even doing there?" Santana questioned, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"I was picking up a tree for my mom," Quinn answered without missing a beat.

Santana frowned, that answer just didn't sit right with her. She'd known Quinn for a while now and for as long as she'd known her, the Fabray's always had their obnoxiously large and ornately decorated tree set up in their foyer from exactly four weeks before Christmas; there was no way Christmas Nazi Judy would leave something as important as the freaking tree to the last minute. But she kept her mouth shut for now, filing the information away for later use. Quinn was up to something shady and Santana fully intended to get to the bottom of it.

"Well, in that case, thank you Quinn," Mr Schue continued. "See this is what Christmas should be about! People putting aside their differences to come together, share in the joy of the holidays and help each other out."

#

"So, Quinn, what are your plans for the holidays?" Rachel asked as they exited the choir room after practice and headed for their next class which they happened to share.

"Church on Christmas Eve and then we'll be heading to Columbus to spend a few days with my sister and her family. We're doing Christmas Day there and my grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins are going to come." To say that Quinn was dreading it was an understatement. Fabray -or in this case, Spencer, since it was just her mother's side of the family this year- family gatherings never ended well. "What about you?"

"Oh, my dad's and I have this tradition that we've been doing every year since I was eight. On Christmas Eve we order Chinese and watch The Main Event and then on Christmas Day we go caroling to share the gift of my voice with all of our neighbors."

"That sounds like fun," Quinn said sincerely as they entered their classroom and claimed a desk up the front together.

"So do your plans, it must be nice getting together with such a large family," Rachel said wistfully, cursing her fathers for making her an only child.

"Not when it's mine."

"I'm sure it can't be that bad."

Quinn just shrugged. "At least I don't have to worry about dealing with my Dad's side of the family this year. Plus it'll be the first time in a couple of years that my aunt Paula and her family will be coming since they live in LA now. My grandmother went to visit them once and came back refusing to ever talk about it and she doesn't know that they're coming so that should be interesting."

Interesting was Quinn putting it mildly for Rachel's sake. Living hell would be the term she'd rather use to describe it. Hopefully if things got too bad she and her cousins -the cool ones- would be able to sneak out

#

It felt kind of weird to be inside a teacher's house. Even weirder was the fact that Rachel knew her way around said teacher's kitchen. Weirdest of all was the fact that Rachel's answer to the question of how she knew her way around Mr. Schuester's kitchen was that she'd once cooked dinner for him and his wife.

The Christmas party was in full swing and Rachel's sugar cookies had proven to be so popular that she'd had to enlist Quinn to help her quickly whip up another few batches.

"This has certainly been a day for miracles," Rachel commented, pulling a tray of baked cookies out of the oven and setting them on a rack to cool. "What with Coach Sylvester suddenly growing a heart and doing all this for Mr Schuester and Artie's new robot legs. Who do you really think gave them to him?"

Quinn shrugged. "I haven't got a clue. I looked it up on the way over here and those things are seriously expensive and I can't think of anyone rich enough to have that money just laying around to spend on someone else."

"Maybe Santa really did bring them then." It sounded about as plausible as any adult in Artie's life having a spare ninety thousand bucks to drop on a new ReWalk.

Quinn chuckled. "Maybe."

She put the finishing touches on the cookies she'd been icing then stepped back to admire her work. "There, how does that look?"

Rachel appraised the cookies that Quinn had been working on, all now properly decorated as stars and christmas trees and snowmen. "Perfect. You're a natural with a piping bag, Quinn."

"So I've been told."

Rachel caught Quinn checking her watch for the fifth time that evening. "Do you need to leave soon?"

"Yeah, it's getting late but I can certainly help you take these out before I go." She picked up one cookie laden plate while Rachel grabbed the other.

There was a loud cheer from the boys, Santana and Brittany as they exited the kitchen. Rachel knew that her sugar cookies were amazing but she had no idea they were that popular.

"Hold it right there," Puck ordered them, he pointed to the doorframe above them and revealed the true reason for their friends excitement.

She and Quinn were trapped under the mistletoe, no doubt deliberately planted there by one of the boys -Puck, most likely- in the hopes of witnessing some girl-on-girl action on Christmas Eve.

Quinn felt like she was going to pass out; she'd gone all cold and tingly and her vision was going fuzzy. She couldn't kiss Rachel like this, not now, not in front of all these people. She refused to let their first kiss to be cheapened in such a way. She looked desperately to Sam for help but all he had to offer her was an apologetic shrug.

When Rachel looked up at Quinn and saw the panic written across her face, she decided that she must have pity on her. Rachel could understand completely why Quinn was reacting so poorly given her conservative upbringing and while as far as she could tell Quinn didn't have a problem with homosexuality, she knew it was quite another thing altogether to be forced into kissing someone of the same sex just because someone hung a silly plant over your head and tradition dictated it.

So Rachel leaned up onto her tip toes to press a lingering kiss to Quinn's cheek, just barely catching the corner of her lips in the process, much to their friends disappointment.

"Now," she said brightly stepped forward. "Who wants cookies?"

Distracted by food, the boys quickly forgot their disappointment and descended on the plate of cookies she was holding like a pack of wild dogs. Rachel was so caught up in it all that she didn't notice that Quinn was still standing frozen in the doorway where she'd left her.

Quinn was sure that her mouth was hanging open, there may have even been drool involved for all she knew, but all she could feel was the pleasant tingling in her cheek where Rachel had just kissed her. Rachel had kissed her. Rachel had kissed her! It ran through her brain on a continuous loop until Sam came to snap her out of it before anybody else noticed her incredibly strange behavior.

"Earth to Quinn," he said, waving a hand in front of her face. "Come in, Quinn. Can you hear me?"

Quinn's tongue darted out to taste the lipgloss Rachel had left on the corner of lips. Strawberry, of course. A goofy grin spread across her face. "Best Christmas ever."


End file.
